Blackout
by TheMoonAlwaysFalls
Summary: After being chased halfway across the world, nearly killed multiple times, and being stranded in India, someone finally has to accept that she's here to stay. Who says she can't make the most of being left for dead, at least until salvation comes? - Bruce/OC
1. Stranded

_Prosperity is not without many fears and distastes, and adversity is not without comforts and hopes. - Francis Bacon_

* * *

Running away was a lot easier when you had friends in high places. All Stella had to do was make a call, and she was on the fast track from Washington, D.C. to Germany. From there, she had taken trains, rented cars, hot-air ballooned, sailed, biked, walked, and hitch-hiked to India, all to keep the scent of the Monsters off of her trail.

One more call and she had endless venture capital flowing to her from places she had never even heard of before, as long as she didn't ask too many questions.

Another call? A private jet was waiting to take her from Germany to Spain, courtesy of a certain pharmaceutical fiend.

When she needed a car to take her from Spain to Italy, a shiny black Bugatti and a very sexy Spanish driver were waiting for her in front of her Barcelona hotel.

A hot-air balloon took her from Italy to Bulgaria, though she and the balloonist had to backtrack to the northern border of Greece. From there, they had to make a run for it to get to the Southern coast because they had been shot down by agents of the Monsters.

She made it to the boat that would take her to Egypt. The balloonist did not.

A stolen bike and a lot of water and military rations got her to the far eastern tip of Somalia.

It was by sheer luck she made it to India. The boat that had been waiting for her in Somalia happened to be crawling with Monster operatives. Through a little creative costume makeup, she escaped their notice (cartoon characters were obviously clued in on something when they started using mustaches in their disguises), but not by much. She thought a few of the agents recognized her, but she was always out of their sight before they could register that it was, indeed, she under the mustache, dramatic eyebrows, and improvised fatsuit.

Within three days of her arrival in India, she was in Calcutta – though, it is now officially called Kolkata. Through the unexpected fortune of finding an old friend who owed her a big favor, her transport from the tiny dock where she landed to Calcutta to a safe haven went off without a hitch. The branch of the oil company her friend worked for now supplied her with housing and transportation in the form of a relatively decent, if not blisteringly hot, cabin and a new moped.

Yes, having friends in high places most certainly paid off. However, the price of such friendships included making enemies in equally lofty positions.

Which is why she spent most of her days on the run from the Monsters. The agents who hunted her were cleared to use deadly force to capture her, and they would shoot her on sight without a second thought. So she hid from them like the coward she was and busied herself with creating a reputation as the nice foreign girl who ran the sweet shop. Which she accomplished rather spectacularly, she thought.

Most of the people in her neck of the woods couldn't afford sweets. More often than not, she was left to tend to the shop in lonely disquiet as the food went slowly out of date. Children pressed their faces to the windows in awe of the things they couldn't afford. Stella's heart bled for them, just a little, so she made small goody bags for the ones who spent their precious time pining away with their bodies meeting the glass of the windows.

Sometimes the adults would come in to see if she had anything cheap, or anything to spare. She always did.

Some of the missionaries who lived close by would come see her very frequently so that they could buy a few special treats for the children they tended and a small treat for themselves.

Her days were hot and slow, but not altogether unpleasant. She felt safer now than she had in the past eight years of her life, which was a definite plus. There were no Monster agents looking for her here. There were no S.H.I.E.L.D. agents breathing down her back, begging her to finish her paperwork. No one was aiming a sniper rifle at her heart.

And she was going out of her mind.

She had made it halfway around the world by any means necessary; almost been killed in Greece, Egypt, and Somalia; almost been caught by the Monsters on the boat to India; and that was without what happened before she made her way to India. She had almost been murdered twice in D.C. She had escaped from not one, not two, but five Monster agents in Atlanta. S.H.I.E.L.D. had promptly abandoned her in Detroit while she was on an assignment for them, and there was no hope of getting any help from them right now.

So she had to take her time here in India and wait for the phone call that would give her back her former life, though it didn't seem to be coming anytime soon. She longed for the excitement of a hard day's work at S.H.I.E.L.D., even if she secretly enjoyed the feeling of finally being safe - of finally being able to fully relax.

After a couple of months without the call, she began to give up that it would ever come. There was no sign of a known Monster agent, or anyone else that could be looking for her, friendly or not. She kept in touch with the most important friends she had (they would send her small favors whenever they pleased, which was often; they were rich and she was respected).

Finally, after the mark of about four months, Stella had accepted that she was staying in India for a while. She decided that it was time to begin her life there, and to stop pining away so desperately. There was no telling when the call would come, or if it ever would. S.H.I.E.L.D. always took its time and did not typically hand out pink slips, so there was no way to know if she had been terminated or not. She did her best to lead a less paranoid life, and resorted to the task of cleaning her bungalow as best as she could. It was always hot and sticky, so wood rot was her main concern. She inspected the building with military precision once a week, but she never found wood rot or any other type of devastating nastiness.

The sweets shop began to have more business than she was used to. Many of the missionary children would come to have Stella read to them, as their parents were busy tending to their own business. The orphans found their way into the store to mingle with the missionary kids and to listen to her read to them in English, and sometimes the language of the village (what she knew of it).

Her regulars included a tall, slim Indian man who chomped constantly on half of a cigar. He said he couldn't light it, but he could get the flavor of it. There was a middle-aged missionary couple who brought her books to thank her for keeping an eye on their five children, plus the six other missionary kids who came with them who belonged to two other couples. A short, thick Indian woman who had the most gorgeous hair Stella had ever seen brought candy to sell.

And there was one more. He was relatively new, but he came in at least once every couple of days. His hair was dark, shot through with a little salt-and-pepper, he wore small, thin glasses, and he had a nice, quiet way about him. He didn't smile much, but she had caught him flashing his quiet grin at some of the rowdier kids, perhaps as if they reminded him of his childhood.

They had a routine: he came in, she smiled at him, he smiled back, she handed him whatever package or necessity he needed, he paid her, and then he moved to the back of the store to read. They had spoken no more than fifteen words to each other in the past month, but that was fine. She appreciated some quiet, especially since the twenty-odd kids who inhabited her store always took off towards him when he came in.

He was a doctor. She had to ask one of the children who spoke English, which only four of them did. The other missionary children had been born in India, and could only speak what little they heard their parents speak. He had been in India for two months, which was two months less than she had been there.

However, she couldn't shake the feeling that he looked a little familiar.

She didn't think he was an agent of Monster; they all looked a few colors short of the rainbow. She didn't think he worked for the oil company, though he could just as easily have been one of their top men. Most likely, if he looked familiar, he was affiliated with S.H.I.E.L.D. in some way. That wasn't much better than Monster or the oil company, honestly (her already-pitiful opinion of them had been in a steady decline for a while), but at least it put her mind at ease.

Essentially, her day consisted of an extremely short shower in freezing cold water, followed by coffee for breakfast. She headed out to the store at eight every morning and opened it up at nine. A few passers-by would stare into her window, and at ten-thirty, the swarm of kids would arrive. They would all head to the back room, where Stella had set up a small library and playroom of sorts. Every other day at three o'clock, the dark-haired man would come in and pick up whatever he needed (her sweets shop had quickly become a small grocery store). He would head to the library at the back. At four, the children would leave. At five, the dark-haired man would leave. At six, she closed. At seven, she went home.

This routine had been in place for five months before being interrupted. This particular interruption came in the form of an eight-year-old's broken arm. Two of the missionary boys had been playing rather roughly, and the younger boy had gotten his arm twisted in such a way as to break it at the elbow.

Stella heard a yelp of pain and a collective whine of groans and squeals as everyone took in the poor boy's broken arm. It was twisted backward and vaguely resembled a crooked chicken wing. She scooped the skinny kid into her arms and snagged one of the girls who could speak English.

"Mellisa," she said, taking the girl's hand in her own. The boy whimpered in pain. "Do you know the doctor that comes in here sometimes?"

There came a quick nod from the little girl.

"Can you show me how to get to him?"

The little girl nodded and took off. Stella wasn't unduly worried about anyone wrecking her store. There were enough kids in that place to drive off a stampede of bulls.

The girl wound her way through five streets and two alleyways before stopping at a small bungalow that looked as if it had seen better days. Everything in the secluded neighborhood looked as if it had seen better days. It was dusty and falling apart, and there always seemed to be a thin, glistening sheen of damp and sweat on everything, not just the people. This small bungalow was no different than the ones that surrounded it, just like it was no different from the cabin she slept in every night.

Stella stopped Mellisa before they barged into the doctor's residence. "What's his name, Mel?"

Her liquid sugar little girl voice broke through the din of heavy traffic and the smell of soured sweat. "Banner, I think. I don't really 'member."

The sniffling boy whom she had carried this far looked at her with sad brown eyes. "She's right."

"Thank you, darlings," Stella replied, shifting the boy in her arms as best as she could without hurting him. Mellisa took this as her cue that she needed to go back to the store, and she took off without a reply.

_Banner._ That name thumped repeatedly in the back of her head as she knocked on the wayward door of the bungalow. _Banner_. She knew she'd heard it before. It was like a song that kept skipping a beat. She was almost positive, almost completely sure, that if she had a first name, something would click. She knew his face, she knew part of his name, but there still seemed to be something left out.

The cracked wooden door squeaked open. It sounded as though it was one final squeak from completely falling off its hinges. The visage of a dark-hair, dark-skinned, and dark-eyed doctor filled her vision. He wasn't a big man, but since she was unfortunately only five-foot-two, he towered over her.

"I believe we're in need of your services, doctor," she said, smiling sweetly at injured boy. The boy sniffed, wiped his nose on the back of his hand, and nodded. He extended his broken arm the best he could.

"Well, let's take a look at this then, shall we?" Banner said as he gently pried the boy away from Stella, much to the child's dismay. The boy was determined to use his good arm to hold her hand while the doctor set his broken arm.

Banner glanced up at her while he searched for a suitable splint. "Does he speak English?"

"He told me your name was Banner, so I assume so," Stella replied. The boy held on to her fingers so tightly that they began to turn purple.

He mumbled, wiping away more tears, "Daddy speaks English, so I do, too."

Banner smiled at the boy as he gently coaxed his arm into a normal position. "What's your name, then?"

"John," the boy said, whimpering from the pain. He squeezed Stella's fingers harder.

Stella raised an eyebrow and directed towards Banner, "He's a missionary kid."

"I see that," Banner replied, never losing his comforting smile. "How did you break your elbow, John?"

"I hit Jason, so he sat on my arm," John replied, pouting. Stella was surprised at how far out this kid could poke his lips; as a rule of genetics, the fact that the dexterity of his mouth rivaled Sylvester Stallone's probably enabled him to do this.

"Why did you hit Jason?" Stella asked. She tended to forget that she was supposed to be the responsible adult, but kids weren't exactly a subject that she had experience with.

John poked his lips out even further. "He was holding Crystal's hand."

Banner shook his head. "Do you like Crystal, John?"

"No, cause she's a girl," John defended. He wiped his nose on the back of his hand again. "But she's my little sister, so I gotta take care of her."

Banner grinned and scruffed the boy's hair. "Good. That's what brothers are supposed to do. You have to take care of your sister."

The boy beamed with pride at the fact that he had done something worthy of praise. The three sat in silence while Banner wrapped the boy's arm up tightly. The cast extended from the boy's bicep all the way down to his wrist, effectively immobilizing his arm.

Stella looked around the bungalow for a clue as who Banner might be. She saw books and magazines piled high, all medical journals or books on some obscure medical disease. There was books on jungle fever, malaria, basic first aid, and they ranged to stranger titles on the subject of planetary physics, quantum foam, and black holes. There were no pictures, though. No accolades, no items of memorabilia, no personal items, nothing to even give a clue as to what sort of person he was.

But good Lord, if Banner smiled one more time, Stella believed some of the Arctic ice in her heart might thaw. No one with a smile like that could be all that bad.

It was just that sort of thinking that got her in trouble with Monster.

But man, Banner's smile could make the meanest old woman smile like the sun.

Banner tied the wrappings on the boy's arm off and pinned it securely. "Okay, we're all done, buddy. Come back in a few days so I can change that."

The boy thanked him and moved to stand at the door, waiting patiently so that Stella could take him to the orphanage where his parents tended kids.

"Thank you, Dr. Banner," Stella said, taking John's hand.

"You can call me Bruce," he said, flashing her that infernally sweet grin.

She smiled back at him. "And I'm Stella Storm. Thanks, _Doctor_ Bruce. I still expect you at the store later."

He waved to them as they left, "Of course."

So his name was Bruce. She like that name, Bruce. Bruce Banner. The more she said it in her head, the more it seemed to click. The beat of it sounded positively exquisite in her head. And then the missing beat in the song finally started to play.

_Bruce._

_Bruce Banner._

Something chilled in her heart. She recognized that name.

_Oh no…_

* * *

**A/N: **Guys, feedback is always appreciated. Please tell me if I've screwed up on any grammar, spelling, or factual evidence. I answer every review! :) This story is rated T for now, but I assure you the rating will change when its appropriate, cause I've got everything planned.

Btw, more Bruce in the next chapter. ;D


	2. Identified

_Come live in my heart and pay no rent. - Samuel Lover_

* * *

All was quiet in the shop, which was surprising since there were eighteen children between the ages of four and nine all piled into the back of the shop. When Stella trained a practiced ear toward the direction of the back room, she could just barely hear two children reading. One read in English so that the missionary kids could understand. The other one, a missionary kid who had been born in India and learned the language of the village but spoke English to his parents, read in the other language so that the other children could understand.

Stella really wanted to find out which kids were reading so she could tell them to do it every day. The quiet atmosphere was absolutely heavenly.

Except for the pounding in her head, the repeating of the name _Bruce Banner_ and the awful worried headache that had struck not long after she returned to the shop.

Everyone in her life, past and present, had drilled into her head the idea that fear was a weakness, that it had no business being part of her. Her dad had beaten the tattoo of it on her brain, soccer had, police academy had, and S.H.I.E.L.D. had. Normally, she took this as an initiative to get over what was scaring her. Fear could be turned into a motivator instead of a weakness.

She felt this time, a little dose of fear may prove beneficial. If only she could keep the doctor's face out of her mind, his name out of her mouth, and stop his smile from lighting her face up when she thought about it.

Being afraid was proving rather difficult this time around.

Stella felt sure that there was nothing here that could set him off. There was nothing in Calcutta that could unleash a giant, pissed green rage monster on the western half of India. Nothing but a load of traffic, screaming kids, whining mosquitoes, hot steamy weather, and a lot of people confined to a very small space.

Nope, nothing at all.

She supposed that there was no harm in keeping an eye on him. That was what she had been inadvertently doing since he got here anyway. Banner came into the shop almost every day, and at least every other. It was actually pretty easy to keep an eye on him. Unfortunately, if he let the other thing loose, it would be _really_ easy to keep an eye on him. And then she'd probably die.

The slow rumble of baby-squeak voices and higher, sugary voice began to build as, she assumed, the two read finished the book. She set out eighteen goody bags, each one personalized for each child still left in her shop. She would have two for Mellisa tomorrow, and she had a bigger basket of stuff for John. As each child passed her on their way out of the shop, she handed the bags out. They all mumbled thank-you's or grunted if they couldn't speak English.

When the door swung to a final creaking close, she began her ritual of wiping everything down. Dust from the city outside could not be stopped; it was brought in by every customer, every child playing, Banner, and just the fact that there were too many damn holes and cracks in the building. No one could escape all of the dust; the wind brought it in from under the door frame and left a light coat of it over everything.

Before this week was over, she was going to get someone to send her a fucking Dirt Devil.

She sighed and scrubbed the counter with as much force as she could muster. It was nearly too hot to move, much less do this kind of work. If she didn't, though, she'd find _two_ coats of dust on everything tomorrow, and that would just make her mood even worse. When the counter was clear, she kneeled on the wooden floor and began her work scrubbing, washing, soaping, more scrubbing, and finally the final washing. She sat back, still on the floor, and looked up at the ceiling, completely exhausted.

She spotted a few dark places, which she would have to check out tomorrow. It was probably fucking wood rot. She would replace the entire ceiling before she let wood rot destroy it.

Stella was just about to pull herself up and close the shop early when a dark, curly-hair head poked its way into her view.

Banner looked down, fixing his eyes on her dusty blonde head. "Oh, hi. I thought you might have already left or something."

Stella shook her head, never leaving from her tired slump on the floor. "No, I'm here until seven. You're usually gone by now, though."

He smiled shyly at her, "I kind of got into a book. I wanted to ask if could borrow it from you."

Banner extended a hand down, which Stella took. He pulled her up without much effort, which made the swooning teenage girl in the back of her head squeal with delight. She used the imaginary version of her former police badass image to squash the girl underneath the heel of her boot and reminded herself that it wouldn't take someone six feet tall much effort to hoist someone who was five-two.

That didn't mean she couldn't like it, though.

"So what book have you been so completely absorbed in, Doc?" Stella asked as she began to wash and wring out the dirty, dusty washcloth.

If he hadn't been so tan, she probably could have seen him blush, but Banner felt his face heat up as he held the bright yellow book aloft. It was rather embarrassing, but he was an unattached thirty-something-year-old after all. He needed some help to survive.

Stella smirked. He had been reading _Cooking for Dummies._

"I could teach you how to cook, you know," she said, smiling. She took the book from him and quickly rifled through the pages. "Following an example is much easier than following instructions. And not to brag, but I'm a pretty good cook."

"So I should learn to cook by following your example," he repeated. He took the book back from her and tucked it securely under his arm. A smile broke over his face. "When's our first lesson, teacher?"

"Well, what do you want for supper?"

* * *

While Stella made a quick shopping trip, Bruce closed up the shop. He straightened the books in the library (one half of the backroom) and the toys in the playroom (the other half of the backroom). Once he was sure it was up to her standards, he check the three shelves in the store to make sure they were organized as well (many days in a lab had prepared him for the task of ultra-quick organization). Everything seemed to be in relatively good shape.

He swiped one of the books from the backroom, after which he carefully wedged a bookend between the surrounding two books, and took a seat on the stool behind the counter. It was one of the Harry Potter novels, which he enjoyed, and normally he could have gotten lost in it. For some reason, he couldn't seem to get into it this time.

Not since he recognized Stella.

S.H.I.E.L.D. must have pitched a fit when she disappeared.

They were two people on the run, and neither would have made running away and hiding their first choice to fix a problem. Bruce didn't know what prompted Stella to run away, but he did it for the safety of everyone else. He ran to get away from the people Stella worked for. He ran away for his own peace of mind. Because of his stupid heart, though, the peace of mind he had enjoyed for the past two months was starting to fade.

He supposed he was a glutton for punishment. Every time he walked into the shop, she was always at the front counter. He was thankful for his olive-toned skin; his face always got hot when he looked at her. And then when she smiled at him every morning, every damn morning, his heart would pound harder –and that was dangerous. When she came into his bungalow that morning with those kids in tow, face flushed darkly pink from exertion, wild blonde hair –she was beautiful.

She had him under her thumb and she didn't even know.

The doorbell about the front door chimed, and Bruce knew Stella had returned with food. He wasn't a bad cook, per se, but he couldn't seem to make himself get up and leave, no matter what his brain was telling him. His heart was singularly in the lead right now. Not to mention he hadn't had a good meal since the last time he ate at a restaurant.

Stella swept in with two brown paper bags loaded up with veggies. Bruce attempted to relieve her of the bags, but she shooed him through the door behind the counter, which he was surprised to learn turned out to be the entrance to a small cabin. A small kitchenette resided off to one side while the other side played host to a couch and a small table with soft, comfy-looking chairs flanking the opposite side of it.

"Do you live here?" Bruce asked, eyeing the couch appreciatively. His butt felt the need to make contact with it.

"No, I'm renting a cabin from some friends," Stella said, placing the armload of food down on the small counter next to the stove. Some friends indeed. She continued, "The man who owned the store moved to Mumbai after I bought it from him."

Which was actually true; she had been looking around for her cabin, which was the street over, when she saw that the man was trying to sell it. He had attempted to turn the shop into a clothing store to rival the one across the street, but the prices were far too high for the neighborhood. He moved to Mumbai with his family the day after she bought it from him.

Bruce sat down on the wine-red couch, earning a sharp look from Stella. He shot back up fairly quickly.

"I'm teaching you to cook, which means get your ass over here," she said in her businesslike manner. '_Yes, please get your fine, fine ass over here.'_

"Yes, ma'am!" Bruce replied sweetly. He started unloading the veggies from the sacks.

Stella pulled down a pot and some canola seed oil that one of her friends had been kind enough to send to her. She set it to heat on the stove so that they could fry the vegetables. She split open the top of a bag of flour and set it out, along with salt, pepper, and chili powder.

She turned back to the stove and began her lesson, "With this, what you wanna do is—"

Something soft and powdery hit her face, cutting off her words. Stella whipped around to see Bruce quickly withdraw white-powdered fingers out of her bag of flour. He stuffed his hand behind his back, but not quickly enough to escape her notice.

Her eyes narrowed towards him for just a second before she brushed the flour off of her shirt, stepped forward, and swiped her powdered hand through Bruce's hair. The flour dramatically changed his salt-and-pepper hair into the hair of a man much older than him.

This, Bruce took as a challenge. He swiped a fistful of the white substance and flicked it at her, covering the front of her shirt and the tip of her nose with flour.

For nearly twenty minutes, the small back space of the shop turned into a battleground of flour and, somehow, sugar. By the time Bruce forfeited, there was not an inch of the kitchen that wasn't covered in food. Stella was still in prone position behind the couch.

Bruce stood up with his hands raised. "How about we go out to dinner and leave the lesson for tomorrow?"

Stella peeked from behind the couch to make sure he didn't have flour ready to be thrown. His empty hands fell open and she stood up as well. "Sounds good to me. We can clean this place tomorrow."

"Agreed."

* * *

They sat outside at one of the few open-air restaurants in their neighborhood. Bruce kept thinking about it, wanting to just let it go and keep his mouth closed. He just wanted to sit here with her during the first time he had ever really talked to her and revel in how absolutely beautiful she was, even with tired circles around her eyes and her blonde hair streaked with flour. He knew it probably was not the best idea, but his curiosity finally got the better of him. He had to ask if she recognized him.

"Stella?"

"Mhm?"

Her mouth was full of chicken, her pretty pink lips clenched together to keep everything in.

"I know who you are."

She looked at him and slowly swallowed the rest of her chicken. "You do?"

"Yeah. You work for the people who are looking for me. I just want to know, do you know who I am?"

Her light gray eyes, so light they were almost fluid in their colorlessness, came to rest on his warm brown eyes. She stared him down, her heart pounding in her ears. She had prayed no one knew who she was, no one except her friends with the oil company. She saw nothing deceptive in the depths of his eyes, just the desire to know if she knew him, if she knew who he was.

If she knew what he thought of himself? If she knew that he was a monster. That he could kill her without even meaning to. That he could kill half of India without even knowing what he was doing.

He just wanted to know if she could get past that. If not now, then maybe someday.

"All you have to do is say yes or no," he continued gently. He checked his pulse; it was fast, but he would be fine.

"Yes, I know who you are."

He waited a moment before continuing. "And you're not going to walk away?"

She stared back at him, her gray eyes softening. "I can't think of a reason why I should."

Bruce pushed his empty plate away from him, but he still wasn't full. "There are plenty of reasons why."

Stella decided that she would have to break out the voice she had been trained to use in her position with S.H.I.E.L.D. "And yet, I said that I can't think of any. You haven't presented me with any logical, factual evidence as to why I should walk away from you. I work for S.H.I.E.L.D., Bruce. There are few things that I have seen that I couldn't handle, and you do not fall into that category. If you know who I am and I know who you are, and neither of us have any logical reason as to why we should not be associated with one another, then I see no reason to discontinue our association and consequent friendship."

With that, Bruce finally smiled, still rather shyly. His heart leapt at the mention of their friendship. "Remind me what you were trained to do."

"At what point in my life?" she replied, finally returning his smile. God, she loved it when he smiled.

"Every point," Bruce said, standing. She followed suit and they headed back towards the shop. He quickly interjected, and had to do this rather firmly, that he would walk her back to her cabin. "It's later than when you usually go home. You'll be safer with me."

"I am trained in seven forms of martial arts and can fire, make use of, take apart, and reassemble every military grade-and-issued weapon blindfolded," Stella protested, but she progressed no further. It was nice that he wanted to walk with her. She tucked her hand into the crook of his elbow.

Bruce chastised her gently, "You're a woman, and no offense, but you're short as hell compared to most of the men here. I understand that you can hold your own, but you still can be perceived as a target."

"You're just hoping that I don't get in trouble for beating up on some potential rapist or thief or something."

"I would not wish your magnificent flour-flinging skills upon any other man but me."

* * *

**A/N:** I'm completely against making Bruce out to be some super shy guy who's afraid to talk to a girl. He can have his bookish, science bro ways; that's one of the reasons he's awesome. He's not a wimp. He doesn't strike me as one in the movie, so he's not one here.

Anyway, thank you guys for the reviews and the story alerts/favorites, especially the few author alerts I've received. It makes my heart warm and fuzzy. Once again, please point out any grammatical, syntax, spelling, or factual errors I may have made. :)


	3. Compromised

_If fate means you to lose, give him a good fight anyhow. - William McFee_

* * *

Two Months Later

Stella didn't want to admit that, nearly two months before, Bruce had been right about her being a target just because she was a woman. It had been terribly late one night, around eleven o'clock, when she made her way home –it was just a street away, you know. With it being the dry season, the dust was particularly bad now; add that into the equation with about twenty kids and she had one very dusty shop to clean.

Perhaps if she hadn't have been so tired, she wouldn't have been caught off-guard. Some guy, at least a foot and a half taller than her and with the build of an oak tree, jumped out at her and socked her in the face. He cracked the bridge of her nose and gave her a black eye with one punch, but with one punch from her, he was down for the count. It was the simple matter of where she had punched him –the base of the back of the neck. She wasn't terribly strong, but he wasn't trained to take on someone with her skills.

That one punch ruptured his spinal cord and probably paralyzed him for life.

All she had was a few bruises and a busted nose.

The whole ordeal was pretty quick. She closed up her shop, pulled the window shades down and locked the door, and started on her way home. It was always crowded in Calcutta, even this late at night, but there usually wasn't anyone on her street. She had made it within thirty feet of her door when a huge shadow flew at her from seemingly nowhere.

There was a whistle like something moving through the air at a very high speed and she felt a sharp, debilitating pain crash through her face. The sound of something cracking split the air –both from her face and the guy's knuckles. The vision in her right eye was fuzzy, but she fought past it.

The guy was behind her, and before he could make a second move, she swung a carefully calculated fist at the back of his head. Her knuckles sunk deep into the back of his neck and she felt the muscle and skin tear beneath her hand. The giant thing dropped like a felled oak and slammed into the hard baked dirt. She ran, circling around twice to make sure he wasn't following her.

The first thought she gathered once she was out of harm's way was to find Bruce so he could fix her up, but she quickly dismissed the idea. There was no reason for her to worry him or to risk the other guy coming out. He would come to the shop the next day, though, and that would be an awkward conversation.

Stella's second thought was to leave a note on her door for Bruce and go see her friends at the oil company. Yes, that was the best idea, besides, she needed a little information. They could patch her up good tomorrow and she could be home before sundown. Maybe her face wouldn't look so bad after tomorrow.

She went into her cabin, her sweltering hot cabin, and lay down to sleep.

It felt as if she had only been asleep half an hour before she woke up. A look at her phone told her that it was four a.m. and that it was time for her to go. No breakfast; her friends would roll out the red carpet for her upon arrival. Her moped, the one that she had only used maybe twice since she got it, was waiting for her with a full tank of gas. She taped her note to the front door and strapped her helmet on. The open road laid itself out before her, as did the thousands of people who crowded the streets in her way.

* * *

While a crowd of kids surrounded the store, ready to lay waste to the door that kept them out of their safe place, the two kids in the lead tried to maintain order. It was not until John arrived that they began to quiet down.

Miss Stella had left a note on the door for them, which he began to read as soon as the last child shut her mouth. He read, concentrating greatly on the English that he was barely familiar with and read the sign in both English and Hindi.

"_Closed until tomorrow."_

He turned around to the crowd of kids and shrugged. They would have to find somewhere else to play today. John was curious, though. He took his friend Mellisa's hand and took off towards Dr. Banner's house.

* * *

Bruce heard a knock on his door. He hadn't left his home yet today; he hadn't even eaten lunch or breakfast. Two of the adults of the village had come to him with nasty cases of measles, and he was busy shoveling chicken broth down their throats and feeding them Penicillin.

He opened his door, looked around twice, and then had to look rather a long way down. The boy whose arm he had patched up two months earlier stared up at him with enormous bright green eyes. He had a little redheaded girl in tow behind him.

"Hi guys," he said, smiling. He opened the door for them to come in, but they didn't budge.

"Where's Miss Stella?" the girl asked.

"The shop is closed and she'd not there," the boy interjected.

They both looked rather upset, and even Bruce was getting a little worried. Stella hadn't mentioned that she was leaving to go anywhere. Except he couldn't exactly leave to go see if she was at home; he had two people to attend to here.

"Can you guys go see if she's at home for me? I can't leave," he asked. They nodded and took off as quickly as they could.

Not five minutes later, they tore into his home with John holding a note. Bruce tugged it from his fingers and set to reading it out loud. His other two patients were sound asleep, knocked out by the combination of medicine and physical sickness. He was not worried about them right now.

"_Bruce,_

_I had to go see my friends about my lease. Sorry I forgot to tell you. I might get some AC. I'll be back by sundown._

_-Stella"_

She had drawn a heart before her name and a smiley face after it. Bruce had to wonder who these friends were that she would leave on a moment's notice to find them about a simple thing like a lease. Obviously, she didn't have to tell him anything –it wasn't like they were attached to each other or anything.

* * *

Chandra's office was milestones ahead of any office Stella had ever been in. There were computers and televisions and phones and bookcase covering every space in the office. A large mahogany desk complete with an enormous spinning leather chair took up the entire middle of the floor. The back wall was nothing but a huge window blocked off by a large, thick black blocker curtain. It was also exactly sixty-two degrees in the office. Stella had nearly been reduced to tears when she walked in; it just felt so…so…_good_.

The people in charge of the oil company hadn't rolled out a literal red carpet for her, but they were certainly giving her the star treatment. The first thing they did when she walked in the door was rush her to the on-site nurse who set her nose back in order and gave her an ice bag to put over her swollen black eye.

After her medical needs were taken care of, she was given a feast fit for a queen filled with all the food she missed from America. She was particularly fond of the thick, juicy cheeseburger, but stopped after one. She felt guilty that Bruce wasn't eating with her.

They let her take a shower. A hot shower. A long, hot shower with lots of shampoo and soap and good-smelling things.

Then, Chandra's assistants took her to the head lady herself –Chandra. The minute Stella stepped into the room, she spotted a black leather couch and rushed towards it. She promptly fell asleep until Chandra walked in and tweaked her broken nose. Stella whined from the pain; it hadn't hurt until the nurse set it; now it felt like someone had set her nose on fire.

"What do you want, short stuff?" Chandra asked. She had never been one to exchange pleasantries.

"AC in my cabin, my job, and," Stella pointed towards her splinted nose, "medical attention."

Chandra slumped down into her leather spinning chair and twisted back around to look at her guest. "Looks like you're getting all the attention you want from that cute doctor."

"How did you?..." Stella began, her mouth slightly open. She had been without so much social interaction over the past seven months that she had nearly begun to forget who she associated herself with. She sighed, "Which one?"

"The Indian guy with the cigar."

"So does that mean you've been watching me?"

Chandra laced her fingers together and placed her chin on top of them. "Not watching you exactly, more like looking out for you. By the way, I'm sure you remember that guy who fucked up your face?"

"Does he work for you, too?" Stella asked. She was still in her prone position on the couch, all laid out like a lazy housecat.

"No, he worked for Monster."

Chandra had never seen Stella move as fast as she did at that moment.

"How did they find me, you snitch?"

Chandra rolled her eyes and waved her hand dismissively. "Chill out, short stuff. He was watching us, not you. To him, you were just an unlucky civilian. Monster thinks that they shot you down over Greece. Since you cut your tracker out, S.H.I.E.L.D. can't track you, so neither can Monster."

"So S.H.I.E.L.D. must think I'm dead, too."

Chandra grinned at her wickedly. "No, they're looking for you. You set off one of their systems alarms when you cut that thing out. They just haven't looked for the right people in the right places. You're basically a free woman."

"Yeah, but I'm a free woman with no paycheck who has been freeloading off the charity of friends."

"Spoken like a true politician," Chandra said without losing her wicked grin.

"It comes with the territory."

Smelling some sort of lingering information, Chandra leaned forward. "And what territory would that be?"

Stella glared at her, staring at this ugly, loathed, disgusting blonde woman, the woman whom she would not survive without. The woman she had known seemingly forever. The woman who she had to trust; however unwillingly she trusted her. Stella got up and walked towards the door. "The territory that I lost."

"How's Frankie, Stella?"

"You're the one with all the answers, you tell me."

Chandra smiled sweetly at her, if you could call her cyanide smile sweet. "I'll be looking out for you, Stel."

Stella backed out of her twin sister's office, a bad taste in her mouth. If there was anyone in the world she hated to rely on, it was Chandra. Stella had been told over the course of her childhood that one of Stella was enough, and she agreed. She and Chandra were two of a kind; even they knew it.

Stella fled the building as quickly as she could. She was ready to go home.

She was ready to see Bruce. She was ready to explain.

* * *

Stella came home to a blissfully cold cabin. Someone had even installed and stocked a refrigerator in her kitchen. She didn't know how, but she was certainly grateful. Chandra may be a bitch, but she certainly knew how to take care of her sister.

It was seven o'clock, so she ended up being early. She was happy, though; she was ecstatic even. She wasn't miserable and hot in her dusty apartment. She was cool and exhausted in her dusty apartment.

She was also about to have company in her dusty apartment.

There came a soft knock on her door. Stella all but ran over to it and threw the door open. It was unfortunately not who she wanted it to be, but the company was wonderful nonetheless.

John and Mellisa stood hand-in-hand in her doorway, dusty and out of breath, but their small faces were bright and happy at the sight of her. They threw their arms around her and hugged her as tightly as they possibly could.

"We're so glad you're back!" Mellisa exclaimed. She took Stella's hand and pulled her out the door. "We've been with Dr. Banner all day helping his patients!"

"Really now?" Stella said. She picked Mellisa up and swung her around. John took her hand this time.

"Yeah!" John said, tugging her out of the door. He shut it behind her.

They were taking her somewhere, though she already had a clue as to where. Neither of them asked about her face, and she had no idea what it looked like now. Hopefully the swelling had gone down enough not to cause Bruce any concern.

The two kids took her straight to his front doorstep. Mellisa jumped down out of Stella's arms and banged on the door much louder than she had knocked on Stella's door. It was opened before she could knock three times. Bruce's tired face appeared in the doorway, and he looked positively beat.

"She's back!" Mellisa crowed loudly.

"I see that," Bruce said. He had dark circles under his eyes and looked a few steps from falling dead asleep on his feet, but he gave her a tired smile. He moved in closer to her and mumbled into her ear, his lips close enough to her skin that she could feel his cool breath, "Welcome home."

His voice made her shiver. "They must have run you ragged."

"They were actually very helpful," he replied. He shook his head at her, "You're the one who ran me ragged."

Stella smiled at him. At least she could open her black eye now, which he noticed and was eyeing rather attentively. He let out a long, exhausted sigh and returned his attention back towards his little helpers.

"Thank you for all your help today, guys," he said, smiling amiably. They grinned back up, their happy faces eager to please. "Your parents are probably worried. Go on home."

"Goodnight, Dr. Bruce! Goodnight, Miss Stella!" they chimed simultaneously. They shot out the front door, slamming it behind them.

"Now," Bruce began, turning back to Stella, "please tell me why your face looks like that before I go completely insane."

"Someone jumped me on the way home last night."

His hands gripped her shoulders as he pulled her closer to him. "Why didn't you come to me?"

"I thought it would upset you, and I needed to go see my friend," Stella replied, unable to look him in the eye.

"How do you think I feel right now?" Bruce ran his thumb gently under the swollen part of her black eye. "You may just be the death of me."

"The friend I went to see is my sister," she blurted out. She couldn't stop herself. She had worried the crap out of him today. "She works for the oil company. She said that the people who were after me think I'm dead, so they aren't looking for me. S.H.I.E.L.D. is, though. They don't believe I'm dead."

"Do they know where you are?" he asked, his breath hitching in the back of his throat. If they found her, he'd be next.

"No, they're looking in all the wrong places."

Bruce sighed, his pulse slowing back down out of the danger zone. He couldn't afford to freak out while Stella was here. "Good."

Stella places her hands on his cheeks and pulled his face up so that she could see him properly. Worry lines creased his sleepy dark eyes; he really looked like he was about to drop. She shook his head a little bit and smiled at him.

"I will never let them find you," she said.

His hands dropped from her shoulders, but his fingers moved to graze her chin. She was so close to him; it would be so easy to lean forward just a little bit more and close the gap between them. But why did it have to be so hard? Her eyes flitted from his eyes to his lips.

She dropped her hands from his face, "You need sleep."

_I need you_, he thought. His heart crashed painfully against his ribcage.

"Yeah, it's been a long day," he agreed, rubbing his eyes. He watched Stella inch back out the front door. "Stella, wait."

She stopped. She could feel his eyes searching her face for any little bit of indication that she wanted the same thing he did. He must have found it, because he took two long steps -two steps that seemed to take hours to stride- and threaded his fingers through her hair, cupping the back of her neck.

He pressed his lips gently against hers; he forced himself to do nothing more than that, for fear that the stress on his heart would catch up to him while she was here. He felt her hand press against his cheek, her thumb resting lightly under this chin.

Stella felt for Bruce's pulse, hoping feverishly that he wouldn't realize what she was checking for. It seemed like a mood-killer, but it was just a precaution. His pulse was racing, crashing thickly against the walls of his veins, but he seemed perfectly fine.

He finally had to pull back, his breathing rasping raggedly from swollen lips.

"Don't leave," he pleaded.

Stella certainly didn't want to. She'd love to stay tangled up with him the rest of the night, she'd love to find out what else those lips of his could do, she'd love to stare into those eyes and make him smile that infernally beautiful smile.

But Bruce was tired, and he didn't need any more stress on him right now. Half of the village was infected with measles, and while she and he were perfectly fine, it was taking a toll in this neighborhood, and consequently Bruce. He was sure his Other Guy would be pleased to meet the rest of the village, and kill them all, if he was let loose.

So he had to sleep in order not to let that happen.

Stella gave him the special _look_ she always reserved for idiot requests. It was a _look_ that she had been trained to give, not by an institution, but by her own common sense.

"Goodnight, Bruce," she said firmly, kissing him quickly one more time.

"Goodnight, Stel."

* * *

**A/N:** Sorry, guys. This was meant to go out last night, but my power went out right when I finished the chapter. Anyway, I'll try to keep posting chapters regularly. You guys know the drill, point out my errors and thanks for all the sweet reviews. :)

Also, remember what I said about the rating going up? Well, that's not gonna come for a few more chapters, so no worries, but if that sort of thing makes anyone squeamish, just skip over that part. It won't be chapter-long because that's ridiculous (and not even Tony Stark can go for that long).


	4. Located

_What is the opposite of two? A lonely me, a lonely you. - Richard Wilbur_

* * *

Stella's routine continued as usual the next morning. She got up and went to the shop, opened it, then watched the flood of children pile in shortly thereafter. Instead of watching them like she usually did, she got up and played with them. They wanted to learn a new game, so she taught them the basics of soccer.

A few of the missionary kids could play it fairly well, and they were helpful assistants. There came a point after the bookshelves in the playroom had been knocked over and the books had been strewn everywhere, Stella made all twenty kids migrate out the back door. Her library-playroom was destroyed, and she could sense another long night of reorganization.

When all twenty kids had successfully made the transition to the outside world, she made them split into two groups. Her helpers did the best they could to maintain order, but they didn't have John and Mellisa's group authority (neither of whom seemed to be at the shop today) and no one was really paying much attention to the rules or positions anyway. They had four posts to use as goals and two kids to use as goalies, but that was as close to regulation as Stella believed they would get.

Watching eight-year-olds play soccer and screaming at them, like she used to during recreational games, brought out a little bit of the coach in her. She remembered her own coach doing that, but he didn't stop after the games. Her coach was her dad, and he liked to yell about the game on the way home, too. He would go on and on about the plays she made while they –Stella, her dad, and the two friends he always took home after practice and games- ate at McDonalds.

Watching those kids made her miss her Georgia home terribly. She even missed her idiot dad.

Stella heard the backdoor close behind her. She turned around to find Bruce towing two apparently hyperactive kids under each arm.

"But we wanna help you, Dr. Bruce!" John whined, poking out his bottom lip. Mellisa nodded beside him and folded her arms over her chest defiantly.

Bruce stood his ground (as much ground as a person can have when faced with two disgruntled eight-year-olds). "It's not good for you guys to be around all these diseases. I needed your help yesterday, but you shouldn't be around stuff like that. It's not fun when you get sick."

"But we've had all our shots and everything!" Mellisa mewled.

Bruce dragged his fingers through his hair and shot a distressed glance at Stella. "That doesn't mean that you can't get other diseases."

"Nobody comes for anything bad, though," John pointed out. "If it's bad, they won't leave their house."

Stella smiled. Those two were most certainly going to be very good lawyers.

Bruce sighed. He was trying to telepathically invite Stella to jump to his rescue at any moment, but she seemed far too amused by the fact that he was losing an argument to eight-year-olds to help him. "Don't you guys want to hang out here with Miss Stella?"

"Miss Stella is always busy!" Mellisa said. "She's got to run the store and stuff."

"And I have to take care of people!" Bruce challenged, still in slight disbelief that he was even still trying to argue. "You can help Miss Stella here, and it would be much safer!"

"We know how to take care of people," John said, in his matter-of-fact voice. "We don't know how to run a store."

Bruce struggled with a comeback for this; thankfully, Stella picked this moment to rescue him. She kneeled down and draped her arms over John and Mellisa's small shoulders.

"What's going on here, guys?" Stella asked. She switched over to her soccer coach voice.

"Dr. Bruce doesn't want us to help him, but we helped him all day yesterday!" Mellisa whined. Her pale little face was downcast.

"Okay, do you guys remember how busy he was yesterday?" Stella asked. The two kids nodded slowly, unsure of how to progress; this was a new direction in the argument for them. "Well, he really needed your help, but he won't tell you that all day he was worried about whether you guys were going to get sick or not. He can't be worried about you guys and do his job, too. Understand?"

They nodded slowly again, though John looked rather conflicted as to whether he should agree or not. Stella smiled at him, and then turned her gaze up to Bruce. "But Dr. Bruce promises to ask you guys for help when he needs it, right?"

Bruce, too, nodded rather reluctantly. "I'll tell Miss Stella to send you guys to help when I need it."

Stella patted the two kids on the back and nudged them off towards the disastrous soccer game. "Problem solved."

As John ran right in to kick the soccer ball away from the child who had it, Stella turned back around to Bruce. Amusement danced in her light gray eyes, and she was just about to open her mouth to comment when Bruce cut her off.

"I'm a physicist, not a babysitter," he mumbled sorely.

"And I'm a secret agent," Stella teased. "If it makes you feel better, I think Harvard Law is already looking at the boy."

Bruce rolled his eyes and draped his arm around her shoulders, pulling her back into the backroom of the shop. He locked the door quietly behind him and pulled her into a rib-crushing hug.

"Did I do something I don't remember last night?" Stella asked, rather confused. She wasn't used to hugs of such magnitude except from people a fourth of her age.

"Unless you don't remember me kissing you…"

"I think that went a little like this."

Stella reached up on her toes and dug her fingers into his hair, bringing his face down to her level. He closed the gap, covering her lips with his; he wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her close to him. She could pull the breath from his lungs, make his heart scream at him to stop, but he couldn't. He didn't want to.

Finally, after what seemed like ages, Stella stepped back. Bruce's eyes were flecked through with emerald and his breathing was ragged and starved.

Stella took her face in his hands, stroking his cheeks and neck gently. "Hey, look at me. It's just me."

He blinked laboriously, breathing deeply. More green flecks appeared, and now his eyes were nearly entirely emerald.

"Hey," she said, putting more force behind it. "Tell your Other Guy that if he comes through, I'll make him wish he had thought twice."

Bruce, though he could barely hear at that point, heard something behind her words. Through the rush of blood in his head and the agonizing fire sparking in his nerve endings, he could hear something that sounded like wind. It sounded a hurricane pounding a freezing tin roof. It sounded like something being torn apart in a storm. It sounded like death, like torture. But he didn't feel threatened, because the sound of the storm wasn't coming for him.

Suddenly, the pain stopped. The screaming wind that had been an invading attacker in his head quieted. The Other Guy stomped off back into his cave, surprisingly, and left him alone. That was something the bastard had never done before.

Stella hoped he wouldn't figure out that it was her making the hurricane in his head. His eyes darkened back into their signature chocolate brown and his breathing slowed to normal.

She grabbed him in a hug, "Feel better?"

"Much," he replied gratefully. Stella ran to the front, picked up a bottle of water, and brought it to him, which he gulped down in seconds. "He's never done that before. How did you stop him?"

Stella shrugged. "I guess he and I came to an understanding."

That certainly didn't add up in Bruce's mind. Stella was short, blonde, and gorgeous; hardly anything for the Other Guy to fear. She did have a wicked roundhouse kick (which he found out unfortunately by accident, and in a highly painful place), but that would be merely a mosquito bite for the big green monster.

He felt certain it had something to do with the tormenting hurricane in his head, but he decided to wait to say something about it.

"I want you to stay with me tonight so I can make sure Big, Green, and Ugly doesn't try something funny," Stella began. She had slipped into one of her _voices_. "Go ahead and go to my cabin where it's nice and cool and get some sleep. You most certainly need it. I'll close up the store a little early today, and I'll cook you something good."

"What if he tries to get out?" Bruce asked, his eyebrows striking dark tallies above his eyes. "I don't want you there if he does."

Stella stood up on her tiptoes, though she didn't need to. She always seemed taller than she was. Her gray eyes bored into his defiantly, if not with a twinkle of mischievousness. "I can handle you just fine."

Bruce heard the laughter in her voice. He smirked, something that was rarely customary for him, and pressed his lips to her ear. "You think so?"

His voice vibrated deliciously next to her throat. She wrapped her arms around his neck and pressed her lips to his throat, kissing him gently. "We may have to practice a few times, but I believe so."

His hands trembled, and he had to check his pulse rather quickly. Something warm spread up through his stomach into his face. If she had never seen him blush before, she certainly would be able to this time.

"You may just drive me insane."

* * *

"Sir, we've found Agent Storm."

Nick Fury was a busy man with a lot of important things to do, but even he could stop what he was doing (playing Solitaire on his desktop) to listen to this. It had been over six months since anyone had heard neither hide nor hair from Agent Storm, who probably wasn't a big fan of S.H.I.E.L.D. right now anyway. Ruining someone's life can do that to you.

He quickly closed out of his game window (fuck, he meant to save). "And how did we manage to do that, Agent Stevens?"

"Sir, it seems that she didn't cut out her other tracker. Earlier today she used her abilities for exactly forty-seven seconds before shutting them completely back down. She progressed no further than stage one."

Fury leaned back in his desk, his intrigue piqued. "Any reason as to why she would do this?"

"None that we can recognize, sir. It seems she did it for pure sport."

_She never does anything for pure sport,_ Fury thought to himself. Out loud, he continued with his questions. "Where does the tracker say she is?"

"The tracker can't give us the location, and it may take a while to pinpoint it based on just forty-seven seconds of feed. However, we do now have confirmation that she's alive. Her vitals appeared fine as well, so wherever she is, she's prospering."

"That may or may not be a good thing," Fury replied. He stood up and shrugged on his leather coat. "I want our best trackers on this. Find out where she is and why she wanted to use her abilities."

The agent stepped forward and placed a folder thick with information on his desk. On the front, Agent Storm's identification picture was paperclipped, along with her basic information. The agent stepped back, saluted, and retreated back out of the office with his orders in mind.

Fury hoped that when they found Agent Storm, she'd come quietly. It would be best to send a single unarmed agent to her rather than a team of armed gunmen. If she saw a gun, she would kill the agent on site. No, it would be better to send someone whom she had personally connected with to her unarmed. There would be no causalities.

After skimming through her file -a prolific venture to say the least- and opening every confidential relations document in the paper trail, he called Agent Coulson. It was best to get him prepped and ready for anything that came his way.

* * *

Bruce was sound asleep on the couch when Stella entered her cabin after closing. He had cranked the AC up as far as it would go, and he was probably now regretting that in his dreams. He had piled pillows on top of himself to stay warm, effectively creating a pillow fort, but he still shivered very slightly when she passed him.

Quietly, gently, she moved the pillows off of him one by one. When satisfied, she settled the thickest blanket she had over his shoulders. It felt absolutely wonderful to her after being in the hot shop all day, but she realized that she would soon probably be an icicle as well. That was where the privilege of snuggling up to a nice, warm body came into play.

Still tiptoeing quietly, she moved into the kitchen to start cooking their supper. It consisted of floured, fried, seasoned veggies (her favorite), fried lamb, and thick spicy hummus along with a plate of flatbread to paste it on. It had taken her a while to figure out how to fry lamb so it wouldn't taste like fried chicken (her Georgia influences came through at the oddest times, just like that good ol' boy accent she never quite lost), but now she could make a pretty good plate of fried lamb nuggets (everything was better in nugget form). Bruce liked chamomile tea after his meals, so she set some to boil.

When everything was starting to smell good and fry, she picked up a book (Swan Song by Robert McCammon) and curled up in her favorite chair to read. With the combination of Bruce's light snores and the simmering, boiling, frying food, it was hard to stay awake. She was startled out of her drowse when Bruce coughed and groaned, turning over in his sleep.

The food came out nicely, and she roused him from his sleep. The thick veil of absolute exhaustion covered him like a blanket, and he rubbed the sleep out of his eyes. It didn't seem as though he could get enough sleep. She handed him a steaming plate, and he said thanks before they lasped to eat in silence. When all the food was consumed, he drank his chamomile tea, kissed Stella on the forehead, and headed into her room where her bed called his name.

Stella had taken refuge on the couch, not about to let her guest sleep anywhere else but in a bed. She pushed her face into the pillow Bruce had been sleeping on; it smelled like soap and leather, and she was asleep within minutes of lying down.

Bruce, however, tossed and turned in the unfamiliar bed. It was freezing, but he wasn't about to turn down the AC. Stella liked it cold, so he could bear with the temperature. He felt guilty about her sleeping on the couch. When it seemed as though he would never get back to sleep, he came up with a rather brilliant idea on his part.

He got up, moving quietly, and ghosted into the room where Stella was sound asleep. He picked her up bridal style, blanket and all, and carried her back into the backroom. Her arms snaked around his neck, and he had to pry her loose before she would snuggle sleepily back into the comfort of her own bed.

He slipped under the covers on the other side of the bed, wrapped his arm around her waist, and pulled her into the curve of his body. He doubted that he had ever slept as well as he did that night.

* * *

**A/N: **It's late and I'm tired, so please forgive the shortness of this chapter. I had it planned out so well, and then I started writing and it went down the tube. So, long story short, my good plan for this chapter broke into into better, smaller plans for subsequent chapters. Anyway, thank you guys for the nice reviews. It really does make me feel good to know that at least someone is enjoying what I'm writing. :)


	5. Betrayed

_Love is not blind - it sees more, not less. But because it sees more, it is willing to see less. - Julins Gordon_

* * *

Somewhere dangerously close to Stella's ear, and alarm clock began to screech resiliently for her attention. She contemplated screaming back at it, but quickly figured out it would do no good. Instead, she hit the snooze button, unplugged the alarm from the wall, rolled over, and fell back asleep. The bed was too warm and cozy to get up out of. There was no way in hell she would willingly remove herself from the confines of the sheets, especially when she remembered that she was sharing them with someone else.

Apparently, that someone else could sleep through a train wreck and not wake up, because that alarm clock certainly sounded like one.

When faced with the morning, Stella went on the offensive and drifted off back into the pleasant land of dreams. The shop could wait for her; all those kids who probably wanted to continue the world's longest soccer game could wait for her, adulthood could wait and give her a couple more hours of happy sleep. It might as well –she was sleeping with another adult.

Bruce, in the midst of his happy sleep, was rudely awoken by an alarm clock blaring next to him. His eyes flicked open, but he stayed perfectly still, hoping Stella would go back to sleep so that he could follow suit. He could feel her moving around, trying to get comfortable again, but without a whole lot of luck. She had fallen back asleep, but she had been disturbed from her comfort and would not be able to find it again.

Finally, he twisted around to face her, only to see her doing to same thing to him. He wiggled closer and wrapped his arm around her so he could pull her into his chest.

"We need to get up," he mumbled, his voice and head still thick with sleep.

Stella nuzzled into his t-shirt-clad shoulder. "Let me be five-years-old for a minute so I can say 'don't wanna' and not sound like a total brat."

"If you don't go open the shop, a mob of kids half your height will come knocking on the door."

"I'll give them candy and we'll be safe for another two hours."

Bruce ripped the covers away from her and piled them on top of himself. "You shower first, I'll make tea."

Stella groaned and reluctantly got up, leaving her bed partner all by his lonesome. She threw a pile of clothes on the bed and headed off to the shower, which unfortunately did not have a decent water heater. Even with the AC cranked up, the water would still be colder than the average temperature in the Arctic, which was fine in India if you didn't have AC.

"You sure you don't need someone to scrub your back?" Bruce called from the lump of clothing and sheets on the bed. He grinned at her, a certain sparkle in his eye.

She rolled her eyes, secretly pleased. "Wait until I get a water heater and you'll find out what a real scrub-down is."

_I could, and then the Other Guy could decimate half of India. I doubt whatever let you stop him yesterday will work in that kind of crisis situation. It would be like trying to stop a nuke from exploding,_ Bruce thought to himself, rather disappointed. Whatever he wanted to do to her physically would have to be taken in baby steps; it still put his heart rate into the danger zone when she kissed him.

The voice of chamomile tea called to him like a siren. It had more than likely saved the surrounding area on more than one occasion. He nearly had to have an IV for when he had patients. The wonderful calming qualities in it kept his mind centered.

He put on pot of boiling water and slipped in two teabags. The scent filled the air like the sweetest perfume, and he picked up the book he had been reading before bed last night and picked up where he left off.

Behind the gentle bubbling of the tea and the hum of the AC unit, he could hear the water running in the shower. That alone was enough to drive him crazy.

Finally, after about twenty minutes, Stella stepped out of the shower. Her hair was wet and Bruce could smell her shampoo easily from across the room. It smelled like lemon, sharp and fragrant, but somehow comforting. It was like sitting in the shade of a lemon tree orchard.

Stella leaned over the couch where Bruce was sitting so she could read over his shoulder. He had commandeered her copy of _Swan Song_, which she had been meaning to finish for months. Whereas it took her a while to read a book, he sped through it like nobody's business; she guaranteed he could remember everything that he had read, too.

"There's tea, if you want any," he said, twisting her head around to kiss her cheek.

She dragged her fingers lightly through his hair, "No thanks, coffee is the lifeblood of my existence. I only drink tea if has the consistency of syrup and might possibly put me into a diabetic coma."

He already knew she wouldn't make coffee around him, and that she only kept the chamomile tea for him. Once upon a time, he believed that coffee may have been his third blood cell next to all the red and white ones, but he couldn't have it anymore. Neither could he have the sweet tea that she reputed so favorably. From the way she described it, it might actually kill him.

"Good ol' Southern tradition?" he asked.

"I'm going to figure out a way to make it so that you can have some," she replied with resolute determination.

"Good luck with that," Bruce said, smiling rather sadly. There would be no such luck for him. "I'll see you tonight?"

She would give him some sweet tea even if she had to threaten the Hulk back into his cage again. She'd even move up to Stage Two if it took that much.

"You can bet on it."

* * *

When Agent Stevens burst into Nick Fury's office for the second time in a week, the director happened to be in a particularly pissed mood. He had lost five games of internet checkers in a row to what he suspected was a bratty twelve-year-old Italian kid, judging by the fact that whoever it was kept typing "KING ME" into the chat box. That was fine; the director would have him tracked down to make sure he was never given a decent job.

"Director—

"Can't you see I'm busy, Stevens?" Fury snapped, quickly disconnecting from yet another checkers game gone array.

"But sir, we have a general location on Agent Storm."

Fury finally had something to be happy about. "And where would that be, Agent?"

"Sir, we've been given a tip that she's in India. We believe she's on the western coast as well. We tracked the location of our source, and we believe that she's somewhere near Calcutta," Agent Stevens reported, never losing his rigid military posture. He handed Fury a transcript of the telephone call.

"Do we know who our source was, Agent?" Fury asked, spreading the papers in order across his desk. He moved his special coffee cup over as to create a safe environment for the documents.

"It was her sister, sir. Dr. Chandra Storm," the agent replied.

Fury shook his head. No sense of loyalty, but when you sleep with snakes, you often get bit. "She's got enough eyes and ears to make us look under-managed."

"Shall we send an agent to scout the area, perhaps Agent Romanoff? It seems like she would be in the least danger."

_Or the most_, Fury fumed silently. "It's been seven months since Storm abandoned her post. Have we hired anyone competent that she wouldn't know?"

The agent hesitated. "No, sir. We've been shorthanded since Agent Storm abandoned Detroit."

Fury was forced to make a difficult call. Storm was dangerous at best when left alone, but without intervention, she could turn destructive. "Let her stay in India, but I want her exact location pinpointed as soon as possible. Monitor her tracker. If she goes into Stage One for more than ten minutes, send Agent Coulson to me and I will give the order for him to deploy. If she hits Stage Two, I give you the authority to send Agent Romanoff immediately, no exceptions. I want both of them in my office to be briefed. Hopefully, Storm isn't feeling up to playing the daredevil after her failure in Detroit."

"Yes, sir!" the agent said, saluting spectacularly. He clicked his heels, turned, and back out of the office, leaving his stack of documents for Fury to look over.

* * *

Dr. Chandra Storm felt a sense of rather deserved satisfaction. She was ready for Stella to leave her corner of the universe. Besides, didn't Stella want her old job back? Being the center of Human Resources for S.H.I.E.L.D. didn't exactly sound like a gratifying job, but she seemed to miss it.

She hadn't told S.H.I.E.L.D. where Stella was, she had just given them a little hint as to where they should look. All they had been doing was scouring Greece and Italy anyway, and that was about as wrong as they could get without searching in America, for goodness sake. A little hint wouldn't do them any harm. Besides, it had taken them seven months and they were still searching in Greece; it would take them another seven to comb through Calcutta alone.

In which case, Chandra might just have to give them another hint. And this time, it wouldn't be a location, it would be Stella herself.

If she was feeling generous, she might even throw in Dr. Bruce Banner as well, if she could get him into the right cage.

* * *

Bruce wasn't exactly MacGyver, but he was pretty proud of his idea to stop his patient from bleeding to death by using the string from a boiled teabag and a section of some shorts he found at the bottom of his suitcase. The man had slit both of his wrists in an attempt to kill himself, something that Bruce was himself familiar with, and the man's wife had dragged him by the feet two blocks to Bruce's sweltering bungalow.

The man woke up in a bout of terrible agony, not from his wrists, but from the lack of oxygen making its way through his body. He'd lost a lot of blood, and now the man's stomach cramps had him doubled over in absolute anguish. The wife looked at her husband with distaste for what he had done, and she looked at him with pity for the pain he felt because of his foolishness.

Bruce could understand where the man was coming from. Suicide was not a decision that was made on the spot. It could have taken years for this man to decide that his life wasn't worth living, the way that it had been for Bruce. He could have been living his life in complete normalcy, but something could have been eating at him for who knows how long. Unfortunately for Bruce, it didn't pan out that way for him, but he was still familiar with this man's suffering.

He felt pity for him, but he also understood him the way his wife never would.

When he put that gun to his head, that pristinely clean new gun, he had finally felt relief. He had finally been happy since the accident because he knew he wouldn't be in such agony anymore. He had his note signed and sealed, he had his research safe and on its way to S.H.I.E.L.D.'s R&D department where it might be effectively used, and he had the barrel of the gun pressed to his temple.

He squeezed the trigger. He heard it click. He heard it fire. He felt the round tear through his skull in unimaginable agony, and then all the pain stopped. He opened his eyes to realize he was still breathing.

Then half of Harlem was decimated by his Other Guy.

He could most definitely understand why his patient made the choice he did, but now that guy was paying for it just like Bruce had paid for it.

After six months of pain, he believed he may have found his remedy, and she was working on him pretty well.

Once his patient stopped screaming, Bruce helped the man's wife get him back into their house. He administered a low-dose sedative to stop the man from hurting himself further and they transported him back home on a makeshift stretcher.

It was nearly seven and Stella would be heading to her cabin shortly, so Bruce rushed back to his bungalow to bathe. He didn't think she would appreciate the fact that blood covered his arms and pants, but then, she was still somewhat of a mystery (though he still highly doubted that she liked blood). He assumed that it came with the territory of being a government agent, but she didn't talk about herself much. What he knew about her personal life came from her reputation as the main human resource officer at S.H.I.E.L.D.

He could wait for her to tell him about her personal life. He just enjoyed being with her, talking to her, kissing her (he _really_ liked that part). She knew he was a monster, but she was as undaunted by that as she could be. And it seemed like she knew how to handle Big, Green, and Ugly, though he still hadn't figured that one out. That was another thing he would have to wait for her to tell him.

He turned on his shower, glad for once of the freezing water, and stripped down. He remembered listening to Stella shower that morning; it took every bit of willpower in his body not to walk in there and get in with her. He could imagine her with him, naked, cold, nipples protruding, pressed against the slick back wall, his hot mouth covering hers, his hands—

Fuck, there went his heart rate.

He shoved his face into the freezing cold water, hoping to drive all thoughts away. It was torture thinking about it, and it was worse trying to make it go away.

He scrubbed away the sweat, dirt, and blood that covered his body, dragged shampoo through his thick, curly hair, and showered down as quickly as he could. He scrubbed down the rest of his body and jumped out, toweling down only as much as was necessary. His hair was already wildly curly no matter what he tried to do to it, and it was showing more gray than he liked, but it would dry quickly enough.

For once, he was glad he had brought darker colored button-downs to India. Sweat stains were pretty gross.

Five blocks and one slightly stubbed toe later, he stood out in front of Stella's cabin. Though it was probably unlocked, he knocked on the door anyway. She answered the door quickly, and she stood in the doorway wearing shorts and a tank top with her hair bound up in a damp towel. The powerful fragrance of lemons drifted under nose, along with the smell of cooking food.

In a world where he was perpetually exhausted, despised, a monster, and couldn't even manage to imagine his girl getting naked with him like most guys could, this was a pretty good place to call home.

He grabbed Stella and pulled her into one of his rib-crushing hugs, knocking off her towel so he could bury his face in her hair. She hugged him back, though she could only manage to hug him effectively around the upper part of his waist.

"What did I do to deserve such a magnificent hug?" she asked, her voice muffled against his chest.

"Well, you're short, you're adorable, and you hug me back," he replied. His fingers tangled into her still-damp hair.

"If I'm thirty-two, can I really still be classified as adorable?"

'_Well, I could have said short, sweet, sexy, and about a hundred other adjectives…'_

"Yes, you can."

* * *

**A/N: **Guys, I was eating a lot of comfort food when I wrote this one. If it seems sappy, my hormones are in a mess and my birthday was yesterday. Believe me when I say I had a very good birthday. Also, thanks for the reviews and the favorites and the alerts, guys. It really means a lot just to know that people like what I wrote. :)


	6. Observed

_Like I've always said, love wouldn't be blind if the braille weren't so damned much fun. - Armistead Maupin_

* * *

That morning, Stella was awoken in a rather unusual way. Instead of her alarm screaming at her, her phone began to ring. She hadn't used her phone in weeks, since the last time she had talked to Chandra, but it was ringing, and someone wanted her attention. At first, she thought about just letting it ring and calling back later so she could stay warm and snuggled with Bruce, but then she remembered that if someone was calling her, it must be pretty important.

She climbed over Bruce, who was somehow still soundly asleep, and blinked blearily at the screen. Why Chandra would be calling her at all was a mystery in itself, but the woman didn't even get out of bed until noon on a Saturday.

Stella slipped into the next room and pressed send. "Hello?"

Her sister's tired, screechy voice wavered through the phone. "I just thought I would warn you that we have a friend in town."

Stella groaned inwardly. Who would possibly come to India for them?

"Who is it?"

"Frankie Zito is in town, just to visit a friend."

Fuck. Fuck! _Fuck!_

Stella felt nauseous, and her voice came out shaky. "Are you completely sure that he's here?"

Chandra sounded amused. "Well, I certainly ought to know. I slept with him last night while you were getting some from your doctor man."

"I didn't get anything last night, I'll have you know. Nor any other night," Stella said. Her voice was tinged with sadness. _I wish I had._ "That's not the point. Does he know I'm still alive?"

"No. I told you he and his cronies think they shot you down over Greece. He hasn't even thought twice about you. He just consoled me for my tragic loss."

Stella rolled her eyes. "All night long, I bet."

"Nah, about half an hour," Chandra replied, a bit disgruntled. "But you still wouldn't know anything about that yet."

Stella blushed darkly. "I would rather not discuss my sex life with you."

She could hear Chandra chuckling on the other end of the line. "Don't flatter yourself, little sister. You don't have a sex life."

Chandra cackled on the other end, and then the line went dead. Stella let out an angry hiss and trekked back into her bedroom. Bruce was still asleep, and his arm was draped over the spot where she usually slept. She lifted his arm and slipped under it, and pressed it to her chest when she got comfortable.

'_At least I sleep with my man all night, every night. You get twenty minutes of afterglow and your boy is gone.'_

That thought comforted her only slightly; the sting of Chandra's words still tore through her. She always knew just what to say to hurt the most, and she had picked on Stella relentlessly about the lack of her sex life since they were in high school. Stella knew what her problem was, and that she didn't like to admit it.

She had never liked to admit when she was afraid.

Just like she didn't want to admit it now. She knew that she wanted Bruce physically; he was sweet and tender and she knew he would take care of her. She just didn't know if they were able to, and she was afraid to ask for fear of the answer. She knew exactly what she wanted from him, both physically and emotionally. She was just afraid to ask for it.

Emotionally, she didn't have to ask. Bruce responded to her naturally, his mood flowing along with hers. Whenever she needed him, he was there before she herself even knew she needed him.

Physically… Well, that was another story.

They had to take it slowly. He never had trouble hugging her, and kissing her didn't cause him to go crazy now, but when they started getting passionate, that was when the trouble started. Unfortunately, it had been someone's idea to make the area of the brain where passion and rage come from the exact same place. Getting hot 'n heavy had the same effect on Bruce as when he got angry, though she had yet to see him even raise his voice at anyone.

That being said, it had crossed her mind more than once to just… maybe break Stage One for a little while. Just long enough so that… maybe they could just be intimate for a while. All she had to do was let a little bit of her mind slip into his, just enough to tame and occupy the Hulk for a little while.

That wasn't fair to Bruce, though. They would do things as he was able to do them. Stella had waited thirty-two years; she could wait a little longer.

Even if it was really fucking difficult.

* * *

Agent Natasha Romanoff may have been breaking protocol, but this time it was on the director's orders. Technically speaking, Agent Storm had given them no reason to be scouting the greater Calcutta area for her, but Natasha was there with five other men searching for her. She really wished that she was at home taking a nice, hot bath, but an agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. had no off days (which was breaking federal law, but the director held the metaphorical whip there).

It was only supposed to be a scouting mission, anyway. There would be strictly no contact with the target, which was Agent Storm. Afterwards, Natasha would be airlifted back home to Russia, unfortunately for another mission. That one was supposed to last a month, and she wished she could just go back to her New York apartment for a while and relax.

Natasha wandered through the streets dressed as a regular civilian. She wore short-shorts and a short-sleeved button-down, complete with scruffy Docs and a supple leather handbag. Her red hair was up in a ponytail (as much of it as she could get up) and she wore enormous aviator sunglasses. All in all, she felt like a stereotypical tourist.

The great thing about working for S.H.I.E.L.D. was that generally you knew where you were heading when it was time to actually work. Her slow meandering was just that –slow meandering. She wasn't lost, but neither did she have an earpiece and a helicopter with global positioning following her overhead. She had an address on a piece of paper, a knife in her bag, and that was it. She had a meeting point where her team would brief her on anything they found, but as of seven o'clock that night, she would be on a plane to Russia.

Going home certainly never felt like going home. It felt like a job.

After about thirty minutes of walking in the hot sun, being accosted by street vendors, and elbowing through large crowds of people, Natasha came upon the location of the address she held in her hand. It was just a shop, rather a large shop, but still just a shop nonetheless.

Agent Storm's sister had given S.H.I.E.L.D. the address, and now Natasha peered into the shop window to see if it had just been a false trail.

Fortunately, it wasn't. Agent Storm sat behind the front desk reading while two angry-looking Indian children wrestled in front of her. Natasha had never seen Agent Storm content; whenever they had been partnered for something, she was always intensely focused, never satisfied by what they were doing. Now she looked mellow; maybe even happy.

She certainly didn't look like she missed the federal job that required her to zoom all over the world and never sleep and was always _go go go_ and constantly put her life in danger. The tiredness Natasha always associated with S.H.I.E.L.D. agents was not lining her pretty face. She wasn't squeezed in by the tight, awful uniforms (neither was Natasha, but it wouldn't be long before she had to put it back on); she wore a simple t-shirt and shorts, and her long blonde hair was fishtail-braided over to the side.

Agent Storm looked a _lot_ happier than Natasha felt. All she did was run away.

She watched as Agent Storm finally told the two wrestling kids to chill out, which they did without even protesting. That was a lot better than some of the adults Natasha was sure she had dealt with while being in charge of HR.

Finally satisfied, Natasha moved along. She even stopped to buy a necklace from the vendor next door to the shop. She had done her job, and it had easily been one of the simplest she'd even done. She had located the target and was now on her way back to the more difficult mission ahead.

* * *

"Guys, cut it out," Stella said to the two wrestling kids. She was exhausted from taking inventory all day. "You have thirty minutes left here. Can't it wait until you get back to the mission?"

The two kids begrudgingly stopped, and then turned to glare daggers at each other. The missionaries could take care of whatever problem they had; Stella just wasn't up for it then. She wanted to go home and take a nice hot shower and walk around buck-naked before Bruce got there. She hadn't done that in so long, and it just felt like a good idea.

Finally, six o'clock rolled around (she closed an hour early on Saturdays), and she shooed the kids out and locked everything down. Bruce rarely actually came into the store anymore; he had so many patients coming to see him now that it was flu season that he didn't get out of his bungalow until late and had to go back to it early every morning.

Actually, the shop had more or less turned into a day-care center, but that was beside the point. She got in more orders than anything; not a lot of stuff was actually bought store-front.

She all but fled the store, and shot down the street to her cabin. She ran inside, stripped everything off, and jumped in the freezing cold shower. She didn't even bother to crank up the AC; she was completely content to take her shower in the sweltering agony of the cabin. The door was left open for Bruce; heaven have mercy on him if he came in. She was going to walk the fuck naked back to her room whether he was there or not.

She went through her shower routine; shampoo, rinse, condition, rinse, soap up, shave, rinse, and towel off. She wrapped the towel around her head and headed out of the bathroom with ridiculous aplomb.

Clearly sleep deprivation was getting the better of her, because she didn't even head for her bedroom. She went to the fridge and poured a glass of tea that may possibly have been sweet enough to consume the soul of a diabetic. She felt a healthy dose of nostalgia for her college dorm room when she could do this every day. Her roommate had been seriously diabetic, so Stella would hide the sweet tea from her so she wouldn't feel bad.

She sipped her tea slowly and walked into her bedroom. She grabbed a book, delved down under the covers, and began to read. Before she knew it, she had thrown the book down, wrapped up in the sheets, and promptly fell asleep.

* * *

Chandra was having another moment of serious self satisfaction. It was her fourth moment that day. She had finally found a cage big enough and strong enough to stick both her sister and the Hulk into so that she could ship them off to S.H.I.E.L.D.

The problem was, it had to be made out of irradiated diamond, which she was sure wasn't even possible yet. And it was probably expensive.

And maybe a teensy bit illegal.

Oh, well. Quitters never prosper.

* * *

Bruce was late, but only slightly. It was nine, and he was pretty sure Stella would still be awake. He hoped she hadn't cooked anything. In a moment of complete and utter guilty weakness, he had stopped by the restaurant in front of the shop and picked up enough food to feed a small platoon of teenage football players.

The door was unlocked when he got there, and he left himself in if only to relieve both of his arms of the tasty burden he carried. He looked around, but was rather surprised to find that she wasn't there.

She wasn't on the couch, or in the kitchen. He went to the bathroom and knocked gently; no response. The door was unlocked, so he cracked it open just a bit (just in case). The bathroom was empty as well, and that really only left one place for her to be.

He tiptoed over to the bedroom just in case she was already asleep and opened the door, careful to shine the light away from the head of the bed.

Stella was sound asleep, wrapped up in a thick fort of blankets to shield herself from the freezing cold AC. Bruce was just about to wake her up when she shifted, her bare back coming into view.

Fuck, she was naked. Or topless. Or completely naked. Or, or, _or…_

He blushed and backed quickly out of the room; the middle of his stomach felt hot, like there was something molten swishing around. It was one thing to think about her naked under the sheets, preferably with him, but seeing it hurt a whole lot worse. His heart felt like it was on fire.

He had to stop. He was a nuclear physicist, and a monster to boot, not a horny teenager.

Bruce took out a box of the food he had bought and tried to push her out of his head. She was barely more than a room away, _fucking naked_, and he was seriously afraid that at the rate his heart was beating, half of India would be dead by tomorrow morning.

It was amazing how one woman could drive him so absolutely crazy without even intentionally doing a thing.

He sat on the couch and ate his supper, and looked around for a book that wouldn't allow him to think. He picked up a copy of some book that he was sure was meant for nine-year-olds and began to read. Soon, thankfully, all thoughts of Stella had withered away.

If she didn't wake up and get dressed, he was sleeping on the couch that night.

Soon, probably too soon, he faintly heard the turn of a doorknob and squeak of the bedroom door's hinges. He didn't look up; he just sat and read his copy of _Harry Potter_ and chewed slowly, silently on his supper.

"Hey there," she mumbled, her voice still thick with sleep.

"Good evening," Bruce replied, finally hazarding a glance up at her. He smiled, but quickly had to turn his eyes back down to his book.

He was pretty sure that she was wearing his shirt and his boxers, neither of which he remembered leaving, but apparently had. He came to the conclusion that she really might be trying to kill him tonight.

"How long have you been here?" she asked, taking a box of food. "Thanks for supper, by the way."

_Long enough to feel like you're going to kill me._

"Since around nine. I went in your room, but you were asleep," he replied, scooping out a spoonful of rice.

_Crap_, Stella thought. "I didn't flash you or anything, did I?"

"No, you were wrapped up like a burrito," he said, smiling. _But if you don't button that second button and you decide to lean over, I expect that you're going to give me an eyeful._

"Okay, good. I took a shower and kind of passed out afterwards," Stella said. She put her feet up on the table in front of them. "I had to do inventory today while running a makeshift day-care center. I'm exhausted."

Being the glutton for punishment that he was, he wrapped his arm around her shoulders and pulled her close. "I can sleep on the couch if you want. I know you need the sleep."

"Well, you were obviously late for a reason, so I assume you do, too," she said, twisting to look up at him with those bright gray eyes. "Come to bed with me."

Bruce didn't reply. Instead, he tugged the box of food out of her hands and placed it on the table. He took her face in his hands and kissed her gently, gradually becoming more passionate. Her tongue slid against his bottom lip, and she pried his lips apart. He could feel every thought he had drifting away; she was stealing the breath from his lungs and the thoughts from his head.

Her hands balled into a fist at his collarbone, bunching his shirt up and pulling him close. His hands ghosted to her waist and slipped beneath the fabric of the shirt she wore. Her skin was soft, and he dug his fingertips into her back and sides. He could feel her start to unbutton the top of his shirt, and his fingers slipped into the waistband of the boxers she wore.

He unbuttoned the bottom of her shirt and slipped his arms around her waist, feeling her skin slide beneath his. He moved one hand up to the small of her back and left it to rest there.

Her lips moved on his, surging against his. She kissed his lips, and then moved down his cheek to his neck, sucking just below his ear. She kept moving until she reached his collarbone where she had unbuttoned his shirt.

That was when the pain started.

He groaned softly, and he was thankful that Stella recognized the difference between his soft whimpers of pleasure and the groan of pain that issued from his mouth.

Stella pulled back and searched his eyes, ready to break Stage One if necessary. There was no hint of emerald in the chocolate brown, but she backed off of him and held his face in her hands.

The pinpricks of agony shooting along his nerves slowly ebbed, and his heart stung when he saw the concern in her eyes.

"I'm sorry," he said softly, his eyes filled with pure unhappiness. She pulled him into a fierce hug, which made his heart ache even worse.

"Don't you dare apologize," she mumbled into his ear. "Not for the Other Guy."

Bruce slid his hands under her thighs and picked her up as if she weighed nothing. "I think it's time for bed."

She laid her head on his shoulder and wrapped her arms around his neck. "I agree."

* * *

**A/N: **Fooled you guys. :) No, I'll warn you before have I change the rating. I promise. :) Anyway, I really like the quote at the top of the page. I put quotes at the beginning of all chapters of my stories, and I've had to change the tone of them since this story is pretty serious. Usually my quotes are funny (and dirty...), but I've had to go for the serious ones this go-round. I know this chapter is a little depressing, but I thought I'd put a quote that makes me giggle at the top this time. :) (Thanks for all the reviews, by the way!)


	7. Captured

_The vast majority of human beings are not interested in reason or satisfied with what it teaches. ~ Aldous Huxley_

* * *

S.H.I.E.L.D. had found Bruce Banner, and now they were having a seriously difficult time deciding the best course of action to take. Not only was he in the middle of a crowded, sweaty city, he was apparently there with none other than Agent Storm, who was possibly one of the worst people he could be there with.

He was, in all fairness, completely screwed if he lost control. He had been missing for nearly a year, and he had apparently been in Calcutta for nine months and hadn't had an incident yet. That didn't mean that something couldn't happen, it just meant that he had been able to exert some serious self-control.

All the reservations Director Nick Fury had about sending a team to Calcutta vanished instantly as he was given the report. On the small, oh-so-secret scouting mission he ordered, one of his men had found Banner at some sort of restaurant. Agent Romanoff had found Agent Storm, and the restaurant had been right across from the shop she owned.

The only conclusion Fury could then draw was that they were in contact with one another. Two people of that sort of personal magnitude could not possibly live that close together and not have seen each other. The world simply did not work like that in Fury's line of work.

Slowly, but surely, he had sent out scouts that perhaps would not be easily recognizable to Agent Storm. Either they had been hired before she took over HR, or they were just from an unrelated department and she wouldn't have seen them often enough to recognize them. They would have to collect enough information to prove that Banner and Storm were in contact with one another, and then Fury would send Romanoff and Coulson to collect them.

Besides, Fury wanted Banner's skills at detecting gamma radiation for the Avengers Initiative, not just because he could decimate a city in a day. Fury actually valued his mind.

Fury only wanted Storm back because he was tired of having to go over prospective applicants himself. And maybe she could help with the Initiative. Maybe.

As his hidden agents sent back word of the situation in Calcutta, Fury was forced to devise a plan to take both of the targets at the same time, but in different places. They seemed to be close enough to cause concern; one of his scouts had seen them kissing, and that was rather dangerous for both parties involved. So Fury decided that Agent Romanoff, who was generally very laid back and probably would not upset him, would lure Banner away from Storm. He would send Agent Coulson, a personal friend of Storm's, to intercept her.

Fury also assumed that he would have to keep Banner and Storm in contact when they made it aboard the Helicarrier. They would both probably be rather upset that they were kept apart, and goodness knows he didn't need for a giant green rage monster and a living Category 5 hurricane to be upset. He had a secret government organization to run and more whiny heroes to take care of.

* * *

Mellisa, the little girl who always hung out at Stella's shop, ran through the streets of Calcutta with a fistful of cash in her hand. A very nice lady with red hair had given her the money to take Dr. Bruce to the place where the lady wanted to meet him. All Mellisa had to do to get the money was tell Dr. Bruce that there was a patient who wanted to see him.

Mellisa assumed that the lady who gave her the money had something wrong with her, but she looked so pretty that Mellisa couldn't tell if anything was really wrong with her. It had possibly occurred to Mellisa that she could just take the money and run, but that wasn't what she was taught to do. Her daddy was a good preacher, and he would be so disappointed at her deception. So even though the lady was kind of scary, she ran off to find Dr. Bruce.

Mellisa found Dr. Bruce at Miss Stella's cabin. He stayed there an awful lot, and he was always there really early and really late. She just assumed that they were best friends, or maybe even like her mom and dad. Mellisa was aware that adults could be friends with both boys and girls, but that was kind of weird to Mellisa. She didn't even like boys yet, except for John, but everyone liked John.

She knocked on the door of the cabin, and when the doctor answered, she quickly explained what the situation was. She told him that a patient needed his help right away, and then she turned and took off down the street back to where the nice lady said to meet her. The doctor followed closely, his gait brisk,

When they got to the bungalow where the lady said to meet them, which also happened to be Bruce's residence, Mellisa opened the door and streaked through the room. She crawled out the window and was on her way back to the shop to see Miss Stella.

* * *

Stella was nearly asleep behind the register when John streaked into the shop, panting and gasping for air. It looked like he had run a very long way in a very short amount of time.

"Miss Stella, you have to come quick! Dr. Bruce needs your help!" John puffed. He had a thick wad of legal tender in his back pocket, which Miss Stella was under no circumstances allowed to see.

Stella jumped up and looked into the backroom of the shop. It seemed calm, as all the kids were outside playing soccer. She didn't think she had to worry about closing the shop up; those kids would defend against invaders better than an alarm system.

"Where's he at, John?" Stella asked, following behind the boy as he streaked off down the street.

"He's at your cabin!" John called back, never even slowing his pace.

A thousand things raced through her mind as she sped along behind the boy, the thoughts firing like blanks along her neurons. _He's hulked-out, he's hurt, someone else is hurt, I have to fix him, I have to find him…_

When they got to her cabin, so, so far away from the shop it seemed, she burst through the door, not stopping to see that John had scampered off.

Her cabin was freezing cold as usual. Everything was soundly in place, but she could hear the coffee pot running. _Maybe I forgot to turn it off, but I didn't make coffee this morning. Bruce doesn't drink it, either._ As it bubbled and hissed, she pulled back into a stance of wary apprehension. _Bruce didn't call me here. _Something clicked in her head, and she could feel the slow ebb and flow of energy in her mind. She had broken Stage One, just enough to keep herself hyperaware.

She slipped silently through her cabin. There weren't a lot of places where someone could hide. Her bedroom, the bathroom, and _right around the corner of the kitchen counter._ Her spine tingled as she tentatively branched out with her mind, feeling along the walls with her intangible prowess.

_There._ Someone was sitting at her kitchen table, and had helped himself to coffee. The inside of his head felt like a cross between a file cabinet and the setup of the board game Trivial Pursuit. This guy seemed to know everything. She felt no sense of threat, nothing too terribly dangerous.

She rounded the corner.

_Oh no…_

* * *

"Hey there, Agent Storm," Agent Coulson said, smiling sweetly. He lifted his coffee cup, _her favorite coffee cup_, and motioned towards her. "Sorry, I helped myself to some brew. It's a pretty long flight from New York."

"No need to apologize," Stella said, still rather apprehensive. "I'm used to strange people coming in and making themselves at home whenever they want."

Agent Coulson smiled cheekily. "You _should_ be pretty comfortable. Most people don't get much stranger than Bruce Banner."

"Very funny."

The agent smirked and sipped from his cup. "I try. It's pretty cool how you've managed to keep a relationship with him."

"Honestly, I don't really want to know how you know about my relationship," Stella said. She sat down across from her fellow agent, but didn't shut down Stage One. "He's not really all that hard to manage a relationship with. Everyone is scared of him, but he really doesn't pose much of a threat to anyone as long as he's calm."

Coulson shrugged and downed the rest of his coffee. He placed the cup in the sink and sat back down in his original spot. "The same can't really be said for you. You're pretty dangerous when you're calm."

"That's your perspective."

"Actually, I can think of about ten people right off the bat who think the same way," Coulson replied, though Stella was sure he was joking. Coulson wasn't scared of her, he was merely teasing.

"Then clearly I wasn't calm when they gained that perspective. I don't just accidentally lose control."

Coulson sighed. "No, you _willingly_ lose control. About five street blocks in Detroit, a couple of expensive skyscrapers, and about fifty people can attest to that."

S.H.I.E.L.D. would never let that go.

"I wasn't the best person for that job anyway," Stella sighed. She reached into the refrigerator and pulled out her pitcher of tea. She poured some into a glass and set the pitcher to the side.

"You were the only person for that job."

Stella shook her head. "Why are you here, Agent Coulson? I don't mean that it's not nice to see you, but I'm happy here."

"By the order of Director Nick Fury, we need you and Dr. Banner for an operation called the Avengers Initiative," Coulson responded. He was all business now. "I assume you know what the Tesseract is?"

"I worked for S.H.I.E.L.D. for seven years, Agent. That word is not entirely unfamiliar to me."

"You _work_ for S.H.I.E.L.D., Agent Storm. You don't have a choice but to come with me," he said. It wasn't a threat; it was his job. "Both you and Dr. Banner have to. Anyway, the Tesseract completely wiped out our Colorado base. We don't have a body count yet. Before it was stolen, a man appeared and brainwashed Hawkeye and two others. The point of the initiative is to capture this man and retrieve the Tesseract."

"How many others are taking part in this little operation?" Stella asked. She liked the ordeal less and less the more Coulson talked, and she doubted that she would even be doing any fighting.

"As soon as you and Dr. Banner are taken aboard the Helicarrier, I'll be going to retrieve Tony Stark. Then there's Captain America. Other than that, I'm not sure yet," Coulson said. "Now, we need to be going. Agent Romanoff should be—

Stella narrowed her eyes at Coulson, and followed him to the door of her cabin apprehensively. If Natasha was here, things were serious. "Black Widow is here?"

"She's retrieving Dr. Banner," Coulson said. "I'll have one of the boys collect your things and bring them along."

They walked outside where she came face-to-face with twenty armed soldiers, who were all decked out in black flak vests and Kevlar. She supposed that S.H.I.E.L.D. had been preparing to take her by force if necessary, or possibly they would have simply killed her if she had decided to make a run for it. Director Fury always thought four steps ahead, though; he had probably prepared them just in case she decided to break Stage Three to escape.

"So, I guess you thought I was going to go batshit and start killing everything?"

Coulson shook his head and lead her to a teeny-tiny car that was waiting for them in the middle of the street. "It's just tranquilizers."

"And what happens if all twenty of these lovely men shoot me with a tranquilizer dart?"

Coulson shifted in his seat in the back of the car. "You'll probably die."

"Exactly," Stella replied, rolling her eyes. It wasn't as if she would make a run for it. If the Black Widow was already with Bruce, Stella was sure S.H.I.E.L.D. would have guns trained on him, but they wouldn't risk hurting her since they knew of hers and Bruce's relationship. "I assume tranquilizers weren't given to the team that went after Dr. Banner."

Coulson looked at her, and Stella glared back with her colorless gray eyes. "No, they're carrying military-grade-and-issued automatic rifles with .50 cal. bullets."

"Then they should feel rather inadequate. It would take at least small grade nuke to kill Dr. Banner," Stella replied offhandedly.

* * *

The three agents, Storm, Coulson, and Romanoff sat in the backseat of the helicopter, along with Bruce. Stella and Bruce sat side-by-side, wedged tightly together. That was the extent of their physical contact, though Stella had the terrible urge to hold his hand.

"Hey, Natasha."

"Hey, Stel."

"Long time, no see."

"Turn off your brain, Stel."

She had forgotten that she never locked Stage One back. Her brain was busy feeling around everyone else's brain, and two out of the other three people in the cabin had a grimace of pain on their face (prolonged exposure cause headaches). Bruce, of course, was unaffected; she was pushing the other guy back. Apparently the other guy was still apprehensive about whatever her brain was doing, and he merely growled and retreated further back into his cave.

"Sorry guys, I forgot."

Coulson smiled, his headache slowly fading. "You've had it going for about forty-five minutes. Director Fury will be having a stroke."

"You always know just what to say to make me smile, Agent Coulson."

* * *

As soon as they met Captain America –good ol' Steve Rogers- and were taken aboard the Helicarrier (Bruce was beyond fascinated with the flying behemoth), Stella was dragged off to the medical center. Since she cut her tracker out, they had to get her fitted with a new one, which was nearly akin to a new form of torture. The nurse first had to choose a spot to plant it, and this time it would have to be in a place where Stella couldn't actively reach.

The nurse told Stella to strip (good thing Bruce had been taken to the lab), and she plastered a thick yellow paste on the small of Stella's back. She could hear a plastic gun being loaded with the lancet that would hold the tiny tracker.

The nurse places her hand firmly on Stella's back and touched the tip of the gun to her skin. "Now, this is going to sting a little bit, Agent."

Stella sighed. "I know. It's my fourth one."

The nurse looked at her strangely, but didn't say anything. She squeezed the trigger, and Stella was met with a sharp pain in her back. Stella stood by her opinion that the medical division used that yellow paste just to look like anesthetic. Now, for the next week, her back would itch in the exact place under her bra strap where she couldn't reach.

The nurse wiped down Stella's back and exited the room holding the contaminated lancet gun, after which Stella proceeded to attempt to get her bra on. Every time she squeezed her shoulders together, she was greeted by a jet of screaming fiery pain that slammed through her back.

"Stupid bitch…could've stayed fifteen seconds longer…guess I'll just have to go loosey-goosey."

"We wouldn't want that, now."

Warm fingers brushed hers away, and quickly pulled her straps together. As nice as it was to have help, she really wished that she had just given up and left anyway.

Stella turned around to find Bruce smiling and holding out her shirt. He seemed rather giddy.

"You should see the labs here, Stel. They're incredible!"

"I've seen them. Looks like the Best Buy of the future," she said, smiling. She pulled her shirt over her head. "You sound like a kid in a candy shop."

"Now what was that about you having four trackers?"

Stella shifted her eyes to look anywhere but Bruce's face. "They always plant them in a place where you shouldn't be able to easily reach. The first one I had when they hired me was planted in my ass, and a guy kicked me so hard that the tracker shorted out and I peed blood for three days. The second one was in my hand next to my veins, but a guy shot me through the hand. The last one I cut out of my shoulder while I was in Greece."

Bruce whistled. "Ouch."

"When one of the biggest synthetic experimental drug cartels in the world is after you and has access to your whereabouts based on your government tracker, you'd be surprised how little digging a knife into your flesh hurts."

The _click-clack _of heels against tile crashed through the room. Natasha came into view, looking rather irritated. "I wasn't aware that they put trackers into the science experiments. Looks like the line is forming pretty quickly. Dr. Banner, if you would please not wander off, I'd appreciate it."

Stella rolled her eyes, but smiled at Natasha. "Take him back to the labs, Agent Romanoff. I need to go find my new office."

* * *

**A/N: **I'm trying to keep the updates regular guys, but I've had to take off the past couple of days due to some personal issues including a nearly-broken heart. If you're concerned, everything is fine right now. I had planned on having a chapter of a little more romance before this one, but I didn't think that I was capable of it at the present time. Romance shall ensue once more! :)

As always, thank you guys for the wonderful reviews and all the alerts and stuff, and especially thanks to the people who wished me a happy late birthday. It really means a lot. :)


	8. Tested

_Man is so made that when anything fires his soul, impossibilities vanish. - Jean de la Fontaine_

* * *

Stella had only been in the Helicarrier once, right after it was unveiled. Only the heads of the various departments had access to it at that point, but it was now obviously inhabited by a little over half of the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents. Her department wasn't very big to begin with, but as most of her business took place at the office building in New York, she really only had one large room and an office (which was still bigger than her offices in DC and New York).

It didn't really take a lot of effort to find it. Director Fury's office was just down the hall from hers, and a couple of empty rooms separated the offices. By the time she made it from the medical station down to her office, Director Fury was already waiting for her. He had made himself most comfortable in her desk chair, which pissed her off rather greatly. She didn't care if someone made themselves at home, just stay out of her chair; it was her domain and her right to helm the office and department from the comfort of a nice leather chair.

Stella stood in the doorway of her office, unwilling to step farther in unless the director vacated his seat at her desk. Rather than take the hint, Fury stacked an enormous column of papers on top of her desk and waited for her to take a seat in the chair across from him.

"I'm going to make this quick," Fury said, glaring at her with his good eye. She had no idea how a man with one eye could stare at her as if he could set her soul on fire if he wished for it. "You have eleven months' work in paperwork to fill out. There are exactly two-hundred fourteen applicants with recommendations from high government officials. I know you've been off the job for a while, but I expect your skills to have improved during your _vacation_."

Stella searched his face, which was characteristically emotionless. "I was informed that I would be participating in the Avengers Initiative."

Fury scoffed. "You'll be deployed next Thursday back to Detroit for a mission. Until then, the only thing you will be doing is pushing pencils. The only part you'll have in the Initiative is to keep Dr. Banner relatively happy."

"If you cared about his happiness, you wouldn't have brought him into this. There are a lot of other nuclear physicists that would have taken the job without a second thought."

Fury sighed. He had been prepared for some arguing. "None of them have the firsthand experience that Dr. Banner has."

"Because a big green rage monster is experience," Stella said. She had slipped into on of her voices, and was getting more and more annoyed by the fact that Fury would _not get out of her chair._ "If you want me to keep him happy, I can do that. I would have done that without you ordering me to do it. I know how SHIELD is about personal relationships; you've exploited my relationship with my family and with Frankie Zito enough to show me that.

"But Director, the fact of the matter is that I don't get to participate in the Initiative at all. It was your idea to push these abilities on me; they were made for situations like this, and you won't let me use them."

Fury rolled his eyes. "You can hardly use them, Storm."

"I'm better with them than I was back in Detroit a year ago," she snapped back. "Which you won't let me forget."

"It's a lesson you had to learn," Fury said calmly, though Stella could tell he was getting agitated. "I would suggest you don't forget it."

"I'm not overestimating the control I have over the stages," she said. Fury let out a hiss of held breath, but could say nothing as she continued. "I know exactly what they can do, and how much power is behind them. What I did overestimate was how much force was necessary to get the end result."

"As I'm sure you would like to explain to the hundred-and-twelve people you killed, and to the teams that had to rebuild both of the skyscrapers you tore down."

Stella felt as though his hand had reached inside her stomach and squeezed her guts. "That was low, sir."

Fury slipped past her on his way to the door and placed his hand on her shoulder. "That wasn't meant to be a low blow. It was meant to be the truth."

With that, he shut the door behind him and Stella was left to herself.

She slowly walked over to her chair and sank down into it. She had been told that the body count reached only half of that; they must have found more in the second building that she destroyed.

If anyone could understand how Bruce felt about breaking Harlem, she could.

She hadn't even accomplished her mission. A year's worth of wheedling and befriending and courting had all come to a horrifying close when she was finally close enough to Frankie Zito to kill him.

He was right there. He was just about to jump from the top of the building. She had broken Stage Two like she had practiced, but as she pushed enough energy out increase the wind speed around her so that she could get him to fall out of the window, she broke Stage Three by accident.

The problem with her abilities was that the hurricane that built up in the target's head in Stage One turned into very real gale-force winds in Stage Two. The pounding rain, screaming winds, and freezing conditions became all too real, completely physical, and were meant to maim. Stage Three was a localized hurricane, and from there, there were no more Stages to be breached. The force of the hurricane could then be broken down into categories.

As with a real hurricane, a Category Five was the strongest, but when Stage Three was broken, all chance of survivors vanished anyway.

Except for fucking Frankie Zito, the target.

That was where she failed. That was why S.H.I.E.L.D. would never let her forget Detroit.

As with any hurricane, there is an eye where calm is restored, and that was where Frankie happened to be when the whole thing went down.

Long story short, while Stella was dancing in a burning building, so to speak, Frankie was escaping from it. The head of the world's largest synthetic drug cartel managed to get away when he was knocking on death's door. He was lucky, but the surrounding five blocks where Frankie's headquarters stood weren't quite that fortunate.

Stella supposed that was why she wasn't allowed to participate in the Initiative.

The only thing she would be allowed to destroy was the stack of papers on the desk in front of her.

* * *

While Stella still had an exorbitant amount of work to go, she was finally starting to make a dent in the enormous stack that dominated her desktop. There was a brand-new, heavy-duty paper shredder underneath her desk that she was having fun using. Many of the applications for positions at SHIELD were directly sent to the shredder; the references on the paper were under the "when-hell-freezes-over" category specifically instated by the director.

She cracked her knuckles and stood up, arching her back to stretch out the kinks. It was rather late now, nearly eight. She presumed that Bruce was still in the R&D department; she doubted that he would leave it unless there was a serious crisis going on or unless he was in danger of dropping.

Content to let him play with the equipment to his heart's content, she bypassed R&D and headed straight for the kitchens. It was time to eat.

There weren't many agents left in the kitchens; it was too late for supper, and yet too early for a midnight snack. She grabbed what they had left out of the lineup (baked chicken with rice and broccoli) and left the cafeteria. She had seen far too many familiar faces in one place to deal with at one time. Let them stare at her in wonder; she would let the other agents bother her tomorrow.

The lure of the R&D department was too much for her to handle, so she took a right as she headed out of the kitchens and took the elevator up a floor. The smell of antiseptic could be experienced before the elevator even got to the correct floor. It smelled of alcohol wipes and cleaning fluid.

She slipped into the first lab she saw; it was pristinely clean and white; every inch of the room was shiny and polished and generally lovely. There was only one inhabitant currently, and it wasn't Bruce. A tall man with carefully maintained facial hair was poking the clear screen of one of the computers. He seemed engrossed in his work, so Stella left him alone.

"Hey, you're an agent, right?" the man said, never looking up from the screen.

Stella assumed this was directed at her, seeing as there were only two sentient souls in the room. "Couldn't you tell by the sexually-repressive uniforms?"

"I'm sure that if I was looking your way, you would look ravishing in it," he replied. Stella recognized him now; it wasn't every day someone got to meet Tony Stark.

"I'm sure if you were looking my way, you'd recant your statement," Stella said. Her supper was getting cold the longer she stood there.

He finally looked up from whatever he was doing. "You don't look like a scientist or an assistant."

Stella shook her head. "I'm head of Human Resources."

"So you're the beauty who came in with Dr. Banner," Stark said, smirking. He closed his programs and stood up; he was quite a bit taller than Stella (but most people were).

Stella sighed and hefted her box of food. "You must be thinking of Mr. Rogers."

"Possibly," Stark surmised. He pointed to her box. "What's for supper?"

"Baked chicken, broccoli, rice; the kitchen also has some sort of barbeque sandwich, but I wouldn't try it," Stella replied. She headed back towards the door of the lab. "S.H.I.E.L.D. isn't known for hiring the best cooks."

Stark stared after her as she started out the door. "Aren't you the one in charge of hiring?"

She pressed a finger to her lips and backed out of the room. "We must keep that quiet, Mr. Stark."

* * *

Stella wandered around the third floor where she knew there were apartments. This was not where she had ventured during the unveiling, so she was a bit lost. Two rows of rooms closed in on her on both sides, and they were near the range of where she assumed room 13Y was.

Near the end of the right row, she found where the Y's started, and she headed left where they continued. At last, she found 13Y. She swiped her key card and slipped in quietly.

She was surprised to find that there was a TV in the room, along with a coffee pot, a walk-in closet, and a rather large bathroom. She was also rather surprised to find that Bruce was already there; the TV was on and he looked rather tired.

"How'd you find my room?" he asked.

She flopped down on the bed next to him and reached over and rubbed the back of his head. "Our room. They gave us one together."

Probably Fury's idea of "keeping him happy."

"That explains why the bed is so big," he mumbled. He sighed and leaned into her hand. "I want to go back to India."

"We can't leave until this is over," she said. "As soon as you find the Tesseract, they'll have to let us go."

Bruce shook his head and sat up on the edge of the bed. "They won't let you leave, and they'll never leave us alone if we do."

"I'll cut my tracker out again," she said. "They won't find us that way."

Bruce twisted around to look at her. "You would have to stop talking to your 'friends' so they wouldn't find us. And you wouldn't be able to use your abilities to stop the Other Guy."

"It's not as hard as you think," she said. She smirked at him, a glimmer in her eyes. "And I don't need my abilities to keep you calm."

He looked at her quizzically. "Why is that?"

She slipped around to his side of the bed and wedged herself firmly between his knees. She started to unbutton the top of his shirt. "I guess I'll just have to show you."

Bruce's hands slipped down to her waist. She still smelled like ripe, sunny lemons. Her fingertips brushed his skin, leaving a tingling sensation wherever they strayed. "This is doing absolutely nothing to keep me calm."

The shirt fell away from his shoulders; her hands continued to rub his neck. "Good thing that's as far as I'm going, then."

He wrapped his harms around her waist and buried his face in her stomach. What came next was a bit muffled. "You'll have to go farther one day."

She laughed. "If you can't keep calm while I'm doing that, then I'll never be able to show you what I'd like to do to you."

"I never said I couldn't stay calm," he said, smirking sweetly. "I just said you're not doing anything to help the cause."

Stella rolled her eyes. She sat down on the bed and rested her back against the headboard, tugging Bruce's arm until he was settled securely between her thighs. "Does this classify as helping the cause?"

Her fingers dug gently into his skin, working their way around his back in circular motions. She could feel the knots of stress in his back, all the tension that had built up. Most of it could not be worked away by just rubbing, but she hoped he would at least enjoy it while she did it. She had to do something to make him feel better.

"Oh, yes," he said, leaning his head forward. "I believe you mentioned wanting to do something to me, though."

"No amount of back-rubbing would bring you back from telling you what it is," she replied, kissing the back of his neck.

"Guess I'll just have to use my imagination," Bruce said, yawning. She was damn near about to put him to sleep.

"Maybe you should tell me what you're imagining," she suggested. He leaned back on her, and she pressed on the tension points in his neck, earning a quiet groan.

He rested his head against her chest and looked up at her. "I'd have to show you for you to get the full effect."

Stella brushed his curly dark hair away from his face and kissed his forehead. "Maybe you should show me, then."

Bruce rolled over so that his chin rested on her chest. He slid his arms around her waist and pulled her down so that she lay beneath him, her thighs squeezing his waist. He kissed her slowly, working her lips around his; she squirmed under him, her body sliding against his bare skin. He felt her fingers stray down to the waistband of his pants, scrambling to find the zipper.

He smiled against her lips and suddenly rolled off of her onto the other side of the bed. He buried his face in the pillow, trying to hide his grin.

Stella shot up next to him; it was faster than he'd ever seen her move. She jumped on his back and sat down, legs folded, and crossed her arms.

"That was mean," she whined, her voice strained and thick with lust. "Don't tease me."

"Now you know how I feel ninety percent of the time," Bruce said, laughing. Stella climbed off of him, and he grabbed her.

She struggled against him, but he held on tightly and she gave up rather quickly. She pouted. "I'm not going to tell you what I was imagining, then."

He kissed the pout from her mouth. "It's probably better that you didn't. I'd like to try to get some sleep."

She hugged him and rolled over, snuggling against her pillow. "Wouldn't want you to be tired tomorrow. You'll need to be rested so you can find the Tesseract."

"I guess you'll just have to show me tomorrow night," he replied, his grin never faltering. He pressed his back to hers and sleep began to claim him. "Goodnight, Stel."

"Goodnight, Bruce."

Stella would never get to sleep now.

* * *

**A/N:**I've been sick for a couple of days, guys. I meant to have this done yesterday, but I was asleep for most of the day. Thanks for being so patient. :) Also, I'm sure some people are wondering. The rating _will_ change in the next couple of chapters; probably not the next one, but we'll see where it goes. (If it is the next one, I'll have a note under the quote at the top with a warning.) It's possible that I may give in and let them go at it already, or I may decide to be a vengeful god and make our two favorite people wait a little longer to get some satisfaction. Depends on my mood. :)


	9. Recruited

_Boldness is ever blind, for it sees not dangers and inconveniences whence it is bad in council though good in execution. - Francis Bacon_

* * *

Four men and one women currently took center stage in the training room on the Helicarrier. Two of these people would be part of the new batch of recruits, and both of them would be in Stella's department, which was currently severely understaffed. In fact, the whole department on the Helicarrier consisted of Stella and a girl who looked like she should still be in high school.

Stella had the five applicants standing at full attention, each of them saluting for all they were worth.

"At ease," she commanded, and all five clicked their heels and brought their salutes around.

Three of the five recruits were American, one was Spanish, and the only female was German. S.H.I.E.L.D. was a global organization; applicants had to have at least five approved references, and not a single reference could be listed on the "no-chance-in-hell" list personally distributed by Director Fury. Applicants would be tested physically, academically, mentally, and emotionally.

A basic physical fitness test was given by Stella; any special skills would be demonstrated later in the application process. They were given academic tests before the application could be filled out. All applicants were tested for personality disorders of any and all types; certain ones (depending on the varying degree) could be overlooked.

After all these tests, it was up to Stella to give the final go-ahead on new recruits. From there, she would assign them a trainer depending on their department; in this particular case, she would be training both recruits.

"Gentlemen and lady, I'm not a soldier," Stella said, eyeing each of them with a trained gaze, "so when I say 'at ease,' I mean chill out. Two of you may find that difficult to do being former Marines and all, but we're not going to make you scrub the latrines or anything."

She paused for a second. "Well, I might if you piss me off enough, but other than that, we won't. Anyway, this is just a basic fitness test. I have the results of all your other tests in my office to be studied later. Right now, I want each of you to do as many push-ups as you can in the next two minutes."

Stella primed the stopwatch on her phone and commanded them to begin. It was always amusing to her that people actually took her orders. She was used to everyone calling her Small-Fry and Short-Stuff (and in one memorable case, Spring Showers, which she assumed was a crack on her last name). Some would call it an abuse of power, but she never paid attention during the fitness test; she just liked to watch the applicants take her orders.

"Stop!" she snapped, and they stopped. The former Marines were chilled and barely sweating, but the other three were breathing hard. "Roll over! One hundred sit-ups -last one done head to the kitchens!"

After about five minutes, three of the five applicants were finished. Once again, both former Marines were chilled, along with the only female. The two left going were fighting hard, and finally, it was just the Spanish guy left. He stopped, cursed, and stomped out of the room.

Stella smirked at him and rolled her eyes as he left. She turned to the four left standing. "That's it, guys. We're done."

The girl looked confused. "That's all we had to do? I thought this was a fitness test?"

"It was," Stella said, glaring up (to her eternal dismay) at her subordinate. "I was testing you to make sure you won't have a seizure or anything if you end up being one of the recruits. Believe me, I'll work you to death. If you don't hate me now, you better start preparing to hate me."

"But how can this be an accurate gauge of our physical abilities?" the girl persisted. She was tall, brunette, and wore glasses. Stella reminded herself to get this girl some contacts.

"So help me God," Stella began, pointing towards the girl, "I want to hire you just so I can make you hate me. Girlie, I've been doing this for a long time. The four of you could stand there and I could tell you which ones would be the best to hire. The answer to that, by the way, if we're gauging sheer physical ability, is both of the Marines. However, this is a conglomeration of factors, none of which I have to explain to you unless I see fit to hire you."

The girl huffed, but held her tongue. Stella could tell that she would be perfect to hire, not only for the satisfaction of breaking her down, but because building her back up would be so worth it. Few female applicants could keep up with the male ones, but some were like this girl and would never give up. Stella liked that. That was what put this girl at the top of her 'to-hire' list.

She waved the four off to the door. "Okay, go down to the kitchens and wait there. I'll tell you who will be staying and who will be going back to good ol' NYC on the next helicopter in approximately an hour. Tell the Spaniard that I was kidding about the last one being out of the running."

Stella followed the four applicants out the door, but headed in the opposite direction back to her office. The mountain of paperwork was still there, but a smaller stack next to it had taken a dent out of the mountain.

She tossed the Spaniard's application and paperwork into the file on her desk. She really hadn't been kidding about the last one being taken out of the running.

Usually, that eliminated most of the issues right there. Typically, there was a standout, two more acceptable applicants, a guy who missed the cut, and someone who shouldn't have applied to begin with. Lucky for her, the guy who missed the cut was the Spaniard, and the guy who shouldn't have applied beat him with the sit-ups. She tossed his paperwork into the file as well.

That left the girl and the two Marines. She moved the girl's paperwork to the side and separated the two Marines' paperwork. One of them, unfortunately, had a pretty serious case of PTSD, which was on the no-no list. She tossed his paperwork into the file, which was slid into her file cabinet.

The girl seemed pretty normal, other than a slight case of OCD. Her physical health was excellent, her academic scores were above-average, and she was declared competent by the mental health inspector. Her special skills listed her as a great shot, and she had been in police academy before being referenced for S.H.I.E.L.D.

She must be something pretty special, or she must know a lot of people.

The Marine was pretty spectacular. He was basically trained in all areas, and didn't seem to suffer from any personality disorders. After she finally sifted through his extensive references, she gave up and stacked his paperwork on top of the girl's paperwork. It was time to recruit.

Stella exited her office and slipped down to the elevator. The kitchen was located on the floor below, and she kept her paperwork firmly in hand as she made her way there.

The victims -uhm, _applicants_- were fidgeting restlessly with worry. Stella snapped her fingers, and each and every eye on the group immediately shot up to meet hers.

"You" -she pointed to the Marine- "and you" -to the girl- "will come with me," Stella said. She pointed to the leftovers. "You three take the elevator to the helipad. Someone in Transportation will see that you get back to New York sometime."

Stella turned and marched back towards the elevator. "You two will follow me to my office right now, and I will get you settled a little bit better."

When they were in her office, Stella settled herself into her leather chair and motioned for the two recruits to sit down in the comfy chairs that ringed her desk.

"Turn to each other and shake hands," Stella commanded. They did as they were told. "This is your new best friend. Notice that I said best friend, not _'enemy_,' _'rival_,' or _'fuck-buddy.'_ In the time that I will be training you, you will both hate me, and then perhaps you will come to love me. I am going to work your sorry asses to death. You will not leave my presence without feeling worthless and degraded. But then, after I have rebuilt you, there will be no one on this aircraft, nor anyone below it, who will ever be able to tell you that you are not made of absolute awesomeness."

The girl, the new Agent Ranger, began to speak. "What about paper-"

Stella held up a finger and the agent closed her mouth. "The first lesson you'll learn is not to interrupt me when I'm in the middle of a speech, and the second lesson is not to interrupt me when I'm using one of my voices. I use them quite a lot, and if you catch me in a bad mood, I get shouty and I get preachy. Don't let my height fool you, either; I have a roundhouse kick that could potentially cripple you for life if I aim correctly."

The two recruits looked at each other rather awkwardly. They really had no idea what they had gotten themselves into.

Stella decided to bring the meeting to a close for now. "I want you two down in the kitchens at seven a.m. sharp. If you're late, you should expect a bucket of ice water to be thrown on you. I have the key-card to both of your rooms, and I will take advantage of this if I see fit. You're dismissed."

As soon as the recruits shuffled out (more like fled the scene), Director Fury slid into the room.

"I hope you didn't scare them too badly," he commented, smirking.

"Not at all," Stella replied. "I'll leave the mindless terror to you, sir."

"As you should," he nodded approvingly. "Get down to R&D. I think you'd benefit from this particular experience."

* * *

You could cut the tension in that lab with a knife.

When Stella stepped in, she expected to find a bunch of computers beeping and whirring and lab assistants everywhere, not three grown, dangerous men glaring at one another and holding sharp objects. Well, two were glaring and one was holding a sharp object, but the effect was the same.

_'Is this what Fury meant? Am I going to have to stop a supersoldier and an arrogant ass from killing each other?'_

Stella crossed her arms and glared at the perpetrators. She was still using one of her voices. "Gentleman, there is a lot of expensive equipment in this room. If you wanna knock each around for a while, we have a gym."

The Captain tore his glare away from Tony Stark and settled a softer gaze on her. He held out his hand, which she reached forward to shake.

"Sorry, Agent Storm," he said. "I believe we met yesterday, didn't we?"

"We did, briefly," she replied, retracting her hand. "I think we're all a little less on edge today than we were yesterday. No huge surprises yet."

"Yeah, well it's only a matter of time," Tony said. He held out his hand to her, which she shook as well. "Too many time bombs wired together is going to make a pretty big explosion when they blow. Agent, I believe we met yesterday, as well."

"Indeed," Stella said, walking over to stand next to Bruce. "Did you eat the barbecue?"

"You know," Tony began, "I did. I'll learn to take your advice next time."

"No, you won't," Stella said, rolling her eyes. "You look like the kind of guy who's got to learn things for himself."

"Spot on!" Tony said, smiling. "Where'd you find this one, Banner?"

Bruce wasn't listening. He was concentrating on the computer in front of him. "India..."

"We met in a whorehouse," Stella teased, but she still utilized one of her voices. "I bought him for pretty cheap."

Bruce finally looked up. "Huh?"

Tony laughed and the Captain smirked, which he tried to hide. Bruce still looked slightly confused, but he quickly returned back to his work, as did Tony. Stella and Steve turned to the door to leave, but Stella stopped for a moment.

"Don't stay up too late, guys," she warned. She was aware she sounded maternal. "You'll need sleep if you want to be prepared."

She was met with two grunts that she assumed were supposed to be replies. She turned to Steve and rolled her eyes. "I don't suppose you'd want to help me with something, Cap?"

Steve smiled at her; it was his nature to help with whatever he could. Besides, there wasn't a lot to do here when he didn't know what on earth anything actually did. "Sure thing."

"I've got to start training two new recruits, and I can't quite remember what exercise routine I used to make my trainees do," she said. "Normal people generally pass out the first time they do it, but since you're genetically exceptional, you should be fine."

Steve was happy to help. "I'll do my best, Agent Storm."

Stella beamed up at him. "Lovely."

* * *

Steve was on his knees. He hadn't worked this hard since World War II.

"Are you sure you're not trying to kill them, Agent Storm?"

"No, they'll be fine."

* * *

When Bruce slipped into the bedroom, Stella was nearly asleep. She had planned on waiting up for him, but it was nearly two in the morning and she had to be down in the kitchens by six-thirty to wait for her recruits. She assumed that he had resigned himself to sleep in the lab. Needless to say, she had pretty much given up on waiting for him.

Bruce hopped into bed next to her and drew her close to him. He captured her lips in a soft, loving kiss. Just as quickly as he had come in, he broke apart from her and wrapped his arms around her.

"I wasn't expecting that," she murmured into his chest. He smelled like alcohol wipes, but she could still find the sweet scent of leather and soap beneath the harsh cleaner smell.

"I wasn't expecting you to still be awake," Bruce admitted, tangling his fingers in her hair. She smelled like lemons and oranges.

"I felt like waiting up for you," she said sweetly. There was nowhere she wanted to be more than right there, with her body entangling Bruce's. "And maybe to see if you wanted to, you know...try."

He smiled against her hair. "I'm glad you're sacrificing your sleep, then."

"Only for you," she said, grinning up at him mischievously.

Bruce rolled over on top of her and leaned down on one elbow. His free hand slid down to her hip, which he cupped. He kissed her again, even softer this time. His lips trailed from the corner of her mouth, down her cheek, slowly, _so slowly_, down her neck, one agonizingly slow kiss after the other, and he finally slid his hand back up to the zipper at the front of her uniform, his fingers searching every inch of her as they went.

Stella squeezed his waist with her knees and gently started slipping the buttons on his shirt from their holes. His hot skin seared her cool fingers as they brushed against him, his face flushed with heat. She could feel his heart pound against her hand, could feel him straining against the other guy. She slipped the final button from its restriction and worked him out of his shirt.

"If I'm hurting you, I'll stop," he said, his voice rasping angrily from his throat.

Stella looked up at him, her fluid grey eyes searching his deep brown ones. There was no emerald in them, but she could swear he sounded like he was in pain. His dark curls stopped in the space between his eyebrows and his eyelids, and she pushed him back from his face.

"If you're hurting, I want you to stop," she said gently. "I can feel the other guy pushing you."

"If he starts to come through..." he began.

"I'll make him wish he'd stayed in his cave," Stella finished, dragging her fingers through Bruce's hair. She pulled his face upwards to meet hers and meshed her lips with his.

He slid the zipper of her uniform down, _slowly, slowly_, and pushed his hand under her back.

"Arch...arch your back," Bruce said, pulling on the back of her uniform.

He tried to fight the other guy back; he tried to keep him away. A sharp lance of pain exploded down his back, and he moved off of Stella. A low groan split his lips and he twisted around to face her, his eyes pleading for forgiveness.

Stella broke Stage One, her mind slipping into his to greet the Hulk. The green mass of muscle and flesh roared at her, but the hurricane in his head roared back. For now, the beast retreated back into his cave, but he had effectively ruined their night.

Bruce sighed when the stabs of pain finally left him. He ran his fingers through his hair and let out a hiss. "Asshole."

Stella brought her face in close to his and smiled wide at him. "Looks like we'll just have to try again tomorrow night."

* * *

**A/N:** Not yet, but soon, my loves. _Soon._ Seriously, next chapter I'll let them get it over with. Then we can get into some serious plot. I've got good things planned for the rest of this story. And yes, I'm going to give it an ending. I promise not to stop and leave you guys hanging. I've done that with all my other stories, but this one is different from the other ones I've written. I actually like this one. :)


	10. Realigned

_The obstacles of your past can become the gateways that lead to new beginnings. ~Ralph Blum_

* * *

It was nice to finally have a decently warm shower, though Bruce wished he were having a decently warm shower back in India. There was absolutely no good reason to bring him on an enclosed tin can that flies; it just wasn't a good idea. He felt suffocated, like he was stuck in a prison cell. In effect, until he could find the Tesseract, he was a prisoner.

Stella was just as much of a prisoner as he was. If she had really wanted her job back, she would have just contacted S.H.I.E.L.D. instead of waiting around for them to find her. It had crossed his mind that she may not want to leave her job once this mess was over, but she didn't seem very happy to be back.

His fear that she may not want to leave was finally placated that morning as she left for the day.

Stella zipped the top of her uniform up -carefully out of his view- and tied her hair up in a tight French braid. Bruce was still in bed, almost asleep, but he was just barely awake enough to watch her get dressed. He liked watching her braid her hair, even though he was a fan of just simply letting it flow; it was fascinating to watch, especially all the concentration that went into it.

She finally finished sticking all those little pins in her hair and flopped back down on the bed next to him.

"If I'm thirty-two, am I still allowed to braid my hair?" she asked, flicking the sunny blonde braid over her shoulder.

Bruce rather liked it, though nothing was better than when she just let it be loose. "Yes, but when you have kids, you have to stop. Then you have to braid the little girl's hair instead and there won't be time for you to braid your own."

Stella laughed. "Maybe when we get out of this sardine can, we can work on getting some of those kids."

"We can't even get through the babymaking process -forget the actual children," Bruce said, but he grinned and hid his face in the pillow. A couple of kids didn't sound like such a bad idea; they just had to get through a few steps before then.

"I think that back in India would be a good place to start. And you know what they say," she said, swooping down to kiss the top of his head, "Practice makes perfect."

He shook his head and watched her leave, wishing that she could just stay in bed with him.

Bruce stepped out of the shower and knotted the towel around his waist. He wasn't required to leave for R&D for another half-hour; his hair would dry on its own before then. There was no reason to look like a model in this place.

This entire situation was a mess. You just don't stick a bunch of superpowerful nutjobs with personality disorders together, even if you do still want to believe in 'heroes.'

He and Tony Stark were working hard, trying to do it quickly, to get this Tesseract found. Bruce had a sneaking suspicion, though, that S.H.I.E.L.D. wanted him for more than just his expertise. There were other nuclear physicists, though he highly doubted that they had his firsthand experience.

Besides, they wouldn't have built him a cage if he was just here for his brains.

* * *

The gym of the Helicarrier now smelled like the blood, sweat, and tears of two people who really wished they had not applied for the job at S.H.I.E.L.D. Stella was starting to think that maybe she should have took Steve's advice on going a little easier on them.

Agent Melanie Ranger was lying face down next to the running machine. Stella had to nudge her with the tip of her boot to make sure she wasn't dead or unconscious. She was neither of these things; she had simply given up on life at that point. The girl's hands were completely raw and bloody, and her legs wouldn't stop shaking.

Agent Jack Buchanan wasn't fairing very well either, but at least he didn't look dead. He had a bloody nose and a black eye, and Stella was pretty sure she may have caused him to break his wrist, but otherwise he seemed fine. He may have lost all his hopes and dreams, but he would be okay.

"Come on, guys, it's only ten-thirty!" Stella yelled, clapping her hands. "We still have hand-to-hand combat to work through before lunch, then we'll take a break. After that, we have these lovely things called teambuilding exercises!"

"You have a secondary mission to kill us!" Agent Ranger moaned, still lying face down. She sounded dangerously close to throwing up. She pushed herself up into a sitting position, arms shaking violently.

"Go get water," Stella said, eyeing them dangerously. Both recruits shivered and sped off to the cooler filled with water bottles that Stella had graciously brought along.

They returned, both already gulping down their second bottle of water. Agent Buchanan's ramrod straight posture had been completely abandoned. He was hunched over and gasping for breath. Agent Ranger looked as though one good breeze would have her down for the count.

Stella eyed them appreciatively; they were doing much better than she had expected. Most recruits passed out regularly on the first day. "You guys looked like you haven't exercised in a while."

Agent Ranger opened her mouth, but her lungs were nearly devoid of air. Agent Buchanan beat her to the punch anyway. "Ma'am, this isn't exercise. This is a strategically planned murder attempt to get us to comply with your teambuilding exercises."

"Well said, Agent Buchanan!" Stella said, smiling. "Fortunately for you, I've been on vacation for a year, and I haven't trained recruits in nearly two years. If I wanted you dead, I would have to summon up my past self from two years ago."

"I need one of those year-long vacations after today," Agent Ranger said. She had finally muscled up enough strength to speak.

Stella smirked at her. "Unfortunately for you, S.H.I.E.L.D. doesn't give out that kind of personal time. I was a rather special circumstance."

"What makes you so special?" the girl asked. She took another long swig of water.

Stella shook her finger at her subordinate. "You can ask that question during teambuilding exercises. I assure you, it's a riveting tale."

"Why don't we do those now so we can have a break?" Agent Buchanan asked. He seemed more concerned for Agent Ranger than for himself; he kept sneaking looks at her.

Stella raised her eyebrow at him and glanced from him to Agent Ranger. "That's not how I planned the day, but if you're going to whine about being tired, I have a better idea."

"I hope it's not hand-to-hand combat," Agent Ranger snarled at her.

"Keep that up, and I'm sure I can figure out an exercise routine that really will kill you," Stella said icily, giving the girl ones of her looks. "How about I show you around the Helicarrier instead? Don't want you getting lost on your way here. That would only make my job that much more fun."

"That sounds a lot better than hand-to-hand combat," Agent Buchanan said gently, flicking his gaze from Stella to Agent Ranger.

"You think so?" Stella said sweetly. "Well, there are multiple floors and a lot of stairs to climb. When we get to lunch, you can tell me how much better your break was than if I'd beaten the crap out of you for a few minutes."

She stalked off towards the doors of the gym, chuckling silently to herself as she listened to the shuffling of bloody, blistered feet and the sound of willpower shattering into thousands of tiny pieces.

* * *

Bruce was very nearly on the brink of sanity as he listened to the computers in the R&D lab whirring and screaming under the weight of their tasks. The smell of carbon was rotting and acrid in the air, and he heard the hissing sound of whatever Tony was mixing together cutting through the beeps and clangs of the computers.

"Suppose I were to be mixing a new cleaning solution for a very delicate tool made of very soft surgical steel," Tony began, his voice distant. "Do you think sodium bicarbonate would be prudent to the mix or should I just keep using baking powder and toothpaste?"

Bruce, for all the knowledge he possessed, was not an expert on cleaning solutions. "Use whatever doesn't melt it or corrode the outside."

"Baking powder and toothpaste it is, then."

They lapsed back into silence for about half an hour before Tony finally became bored with the chemistry set in the lab (as if hydrochloric acid could be anything but fun). He sat down at one of the computers and created a new game; he called it Let's-Break-Into-Places-We-Shouldn't-Go. Namely, the place included the personal files of all those on board the Helicarrier. He amused himself by searching through his (extensive) history.

Though he could never be truly bored with himself, he switched over to Bruce's file. He had been rather curious as to where the good doctor had been for the past couple of years, but he assumed that asking wouldn't exactly get him very far.

He hazarded to ask a few questions, though. "So, how are you and that Agent doing?"

"Very well, thanks," Bruce replied. Answering questions about his personal relationships didn't rank high on his list of favorite things.

"What were you guys doing in India?"

Bruce glanced up at him. "Is that really something you need to know?"

"No, I'm just updating your girlfriend's files," Tony said, winking at his lab partner. "Did you know she has five brothers and a sister?"

Bruce narrowed his eyes and slipped over to the computer. "I knew she had a sister."

"Let's see, three of her brothers are in jail for embezzling funds, the other two are in rehab for drugs, her sister sounds like someone even I wouldn't sleep with, and she's a secret agent," Tony said, his eyebrows raised. "Sounds like something out of a bad crime novel."

"Are you implying that there are good crime novels?" Bruce asked, a hint of a smirk on his face.

"Me? Never," Tony scoffed. "So how do you guys, you know, get down to business? Sounds pretty difficult since you're not supposed to get excited."

Bruce blushed. "That's not your business, Tony."

Tony rolled his eyes. "Come on, it's a simple question of biology. I'm not asking what your favorite position is -unless you wanna throw that in."

"No, Tony."

"Do you have to take a sedative or-

"Tony."

"I'm sure it can't be that hard, you know-

"We don't, okay!" Bruce blurted out. He immediately gave himself a mental slap on the hand. "Not yet, anyway."

Tony whistled. "And how long have you two been together?"

"More than six months," Bruce said. He really wanted to stop talking, but it felt good to finally get something off of his chest. "It's not for lack of trying, believe me."

Tony smacked him on the shoulder. "That's rough, man. Might wanna keep her under lock and key, though. If I may say, she's pretty hot."

It was Bruce's turn to roll his eyes. He wasn't sure whether he should take that as a complement or keep Stella far, far away from Tony Stark. He could feel the other guy growl at the back of his mind. "Thanks, I guess."

The door of R&D banged open and in walked Stella, who was screaming at the two poor souls following her. One of them looked as though he'd rather be dead, and the girl looked as though she might actually bust a vein. They shuffled along behind her, bloody, exhausted, and looking as though food was the prize of the gods.

"Alright, this is R&D," Stella said, leaning against a lab station. "This is what S.H.I.E.L.D. spends millions of dollars on every year. It usually smells better in here, but someone has been using chemicals and now it stinks."

The two followers grunted, and Stella continued on. She turned around to look at Bruce and Tony. "You may recognize Tony Stark. His company is one of the leading organizations in the field of green energy. He's partaking in the Avengers Initiative."

They each stepped forward to shake his hand and introduce themselves. Stella kept going. "This is Dr. Bruce Banner, a nuclear physicist with a specialty in gamma radiation. He's here for the Avengers Initiative as well."

They shook his hand as well and stepped back behind Stella. She continued, "Usually, this place would have more people, but we're a little short-handed as of yet. Our R&D department is based primarily in DC, and we don't have many people running around right now."

Tony decided to step up to the plate. "So are these new agents or something?"

"Yeah, they're based in my department."

"Unfortunately," Agent Ranger mumbled.

Stella rolled her eyes. "They think I'm being too hard on them."

Bruce noted that both of the recruits had bloody, split knuckles. "And the violently beaten egos weren't enough of a welcome?"

Stella shifted her gaze away. "You should see what the combat specialists have to do to get trained."

Bruce put his arm around her shoulder. "They're not combat specialists, Stel."

"I want them to be ready for anything they have to do. There are requirements for basic training that new agents have to go through."

Tony rolled his eyes and eyed the female recruit. The girl didn't look fit to run a half mile, much less deal with whatever tortures Stella was putting her through. She looked like the average pencil-pusher. "They can't do anything if they're dead."

"And neither can you," Stella said, poking her tongue out at him.

"Careful now," Tony said, winking. "That tongue may end up somewhere you don't want it to."

The other guy growled at the back of Bruce's head again. Clearly, the other guy was having some issues with being a little protective.

"And my foot may end up in your ass," Stella snapped. She motioned for her recruits to follow her.

* * *

Stella and her two subordinates sat down in the library of the Helicarrier. Stella carried three boxed lunches, but had soundly disagreed with the idea of eating lunch in the kitchens. She defended the idea of eating lunch somewhere more quiet, hence the fact that they were in the library.

"Okay," she said, her mouth full of peanut butter sandwich, "now is the time to ask questions and get to know each other."

"Can we go back to our rooms yet?" Ranger asked.

Stella rolled her eyes. "After lunch, I promise you can have the rest of the day to yourselves."

They both sighed happily and dug into their box lunches. Agent Ranger wolfed hers down quickly, while Agent Buchanan munched slowly on his.

"So what about this vacation of yours?" Agent Buchanan asked. He took a long swig of milk and wiped away the streak on his upper lip.

Stella supposed it was time to admit her failures. They'd learn soon enough anyway. "I screwed up a mission in Detroit, and my target sent a bunch of his goons after me. I made it to Europe by the charity of some friends, and I finally lost the guys chasing me over Greece. I ended up in India hiding from the guys and from S.H.I.E.L.D. because it turns out those guys were following me based on my tracking position that they hacked from S.H.I.E.L.D."

"So how did you get away for so long?" Ranger asked.

"I cut my tracker out."

Buchanan hissed, "Ouch."

"It wasn't so bad. Good things can come out of difficult situations," Stella said. "I wouldn't have found Dr. Banner if I hadn't been stranded there."

"Are you two..." Ranger began, crossing her fingers.

"Yeah, he's my boyfriend," Stella said.

"How'd you get over the whole rage monster thing?" Buchanan asked, clearly a little intrigued.

"It's not really a problem," Stella said. "He's perfectly harmless."

* * *

It was nearly midnight when Stella finally decided to get out of bed and go hunt Bruce down. He'd probably fallen asleep in front of his work. She stalked out of her room wrapped in a bathrobe and headed up to R&D.

True to her prediction, he was slumped over some sort of metal device, and his left hand was clenched around a power screwdriver. She gently pried the tool from his fingers and grabbed his glasses. He cracked an eye open and blinked blearily.

She smiled at him and kissed his fingers one by one. "I don't think a lab table is an appropriate substitute for a pillow."

He chuckled slightly and rose unsteadily to his feet. "Hey, Stel?"

She locked arms with him and tugged him towards the door. "Yeah, Bruce?"

"How tired are you?"

Stella pressed the button for the elevator. "Not very tired at all."

"Feel like burning the midnight oil a little bit?" he said, grinning in the sexiest way he could manage (he wasn't really experienced with that).

"Something tells me you're not talking about watching the latest episode of Jersey Shore," Stella replied, smiling back. She slid her hand underneath his chin and brought his lips down to meet hers.

Bruce picked her up and threw her over his shoulder in a fireman's carry. "No, but I hear Breaking Bad is going to be a real spectacle tonight."

* * *

**A/N:**Okay, guys, I know I promised that rating change last chapter, but I kind of started writing for this chapter, and it didn't quite pan out. So, as an apology, I thought I'd give you guys a treat next chapter. Nothing to read through to get to the goods, just a good old-fashioned roll in the hay. I don't really do full-chapter sexy-time (a good roll in the hay usually lasts about thirty minutes if you're lucky) because it's kind of unrealistic, but if no one objects, I may just have to do that for you guys. You've all been so nice and so good about reviewing that as payment, it'll be at least a half-chapter thing (good Lord help me, I'm gonna have to put on my porn-pants and get to writing).


	11. Invaded

_Love is often gentle, desire always a rage. ~Mignon McLaughlin_

* * *

Somewhere in the little space that the Hulk inhabited in the back of Bruce's mind, the other guy settled down. For the first time since his accident, Bruce knew that the other guy would leave him alone. He didn't know why, but hoped it was because, perhaps, the monster was finally listening to what his human half said. Whatever the reason, Bruce silently thanked Big, Green, and Ugly for having pity on him. He wanted tonight -needed tonight; he needed this time with Stella not only to show her what he felt for her physically, but what he felt for her in his heart.

He thanked the big guy again, and locked the door behind him.

Stella wrapped her arms around his waist and looked up at him, her chin on his chest. "I'll be ready if our little friend decides he wants to interrupt."

Bruce smiled down at her. "I think he's going to leave us alone this time."

"I'm not really one for surprises, though," Stella purred sweetly. She kissed his cheek, but as she pulled away, a dim look of worry crossed her face. "I think I may have forgotten to tell you something."

He wrapped his arms around her shoulders, "It couldn't be that bad."

"I've never...done this," she said, averting her eyes. "I've never really had time. I've always played sports or been training, and doing this while you're training is bad for you. I'm not really big on seduction during missions, either - that's Natasha's specialty."

Bruce fought hard not to smile, even though he was now properly terrified. His heart jumped into his throat; she liked -maybe loved- him enough to let him be her first. He couldn't screw up this time, and he wouldn't. He kissed her forehead and tapped her chin lightly with his index finger.

"You're not training now, and I'm going to take very good care of you," Bruce hummed gently. He tugged the hair-tie from her braid and ran his fingers through the curled strands. "When I'm done with you, you'll never want anyone else."

"Bruce," she said, scraping her fingers along his back, "I don't want anyone else anyway."

Bruce slid his hands down her sides and pulled the tie from her bathrobe. It fell away from her shoulders easily and pooled in a pink cloth puddle at her feet. She was left in simply undergarments, easy work, but she had a bit more to work with if she wanted to undress Bruce.

She started to unbutton his shirt -curse all of his stupid button-downs!- and nearly succeeded in ripping some of the buttons completely off. Her fingers were trembling, and it seemed like slipping a little piece of plastic through a hole was horribly busy work. She reached the last button, and simply snapped the thread that secured it to the shirt.

Stella was going so slowly, agonizingly slowly, and it was killing him. It was the feeling of slowly coming apart, piece by piece. He was coming undone with every stroke of her fingers along his arms and chest, fighting back lust as she pushed his shirt off, watching the way her athletic body twisted and turned, the torturous sensation of her fingers nudging his tumescent length as she pulled at his pants. More than anything, above every little touch she gave him, he held the knowledge that his heart was melting with every sigh that spilled from her lips and every twitch and turn of her body.

It was all he could do to stay patient and not rip her undergarments off and fuck her in a most primal way. He had to keep it slow, and treat her like she deserved; there would be other times for rougher love. Besides, right now, he wanted to pull her into his arms and make love to her slowly -make her understand that he wanted to take care of her.

She made it seem like forever, but finally he stood nearly bare in his boxers as his dark gray pants formed a whirlpool with her pink bathrobe. He grasped her thighs and picked her up, her legs wrapping around his waist tightly. Her breasts pushed against his chest, shielded by an encasing of thick fabric and little hooks, and he decided that his next order of business would be to get that fucking contraption off of her.

His lips, another piece of himself that was seemingly beginning to work separately from his mind, found her mouth as he laid her down on the bed. He slid a bare thigh between her legs as he crawled into place of top of her, his chest sliding against skin and fabric. Desperation filled his thoughts, and he shoved a hand underneath her back and popped the snaps of her bra, flinging the infernal thing away.

Perfectly plump pale breasts spilled out, pink nipples protruding sharp and hard, tantalizing beneath his gaze. He planted light kisses down her neck until he reached her collarbone. Nipping at her skin gently, he licked at each sorely bitten area with reverence. Between his right-hand thumb and forefinger, he rolled a pretty pink nipple, flicking and circling it as he took the other one in his mouth. His tongue laved out, sucking the taste from her skin.

He looked up at her and saw her clench her bottom lip tightly with her teeth; she was doing her best to stay quiet. He couldn't have that, oh no. Silence was a terrible enemy.

He slid back up and kissed her again, running his tongue along her bottom lip. His lips trailed from the corner of her mouth to her ear.

"Can you do something for me?" Bruce whispered in her ear. He felt a nod, short and quick and desperate. "Don't be so quiet."

Her breathy reply was lost somewhere in a high-pitched moan. He slid his fingers in the waistband of her undies, her skin soft and pliant under his reaching fingers. Ever-so-slowly, in a somewhat vengeful way, Bruce slid her undies down. She strained against him, her pelvis digging mercilessly against his cock, hard enough to pull a rough groan from his throat. The muscles in his stomach clenched into a ball, and the burning, straining feeling in his waist could have brought him to his knees, had he been kneeling.

His lips trailed slowly down her clit, and he allowed his tongue to slip out just enough to taste her. The sharp intake of breath he heard made him smirk, and he ran his hand down her thigh. She shuddered violently as he threw her leg over his shoulder. One single digit, his index finger, glided over her heat, stopping just long enough to make Stella groan lowly. With that small, audible trophy replaying in his mind, he dipped that single digit in slowly, careful to move it as little as possibly. In and out, in and out, sliding up and down without an inch of friction, he stopped midway into her heat and twitched his finger. She cried out his name, as of yet unaccustomed to any sort of pleasure as that.

Stella's warmth burned his flesh and her soft whimpering made the roiling fire in his stomach scream against his muscles. She tensed against him, begging him without words to continue or to appease her misery.

"Tell me what you want me to do, Stella," Bruce rasped, nearly hoarse with his own desire. He teased her heat with a digit that wasn't inserted into her.

"Please," she whimpered softly. She couldn't quite say anything more.

"Tell me..." he said, teasing her further. She gave him a pleading look, eyes cloudy in her lust, and shook her head. He twitched his finger again. "Then show me."

Finally, finally, she remembered herself and tugged at the waist of his woefully still-worn boxers. He slid his finger out, grinning as she shuddered, and pushed her leg away from his shoulder to give her better access. She pushed the fabric away.

Bruce cornered her and kissed her again, claiming her lips with hard, careless kisses. His thick length rested against her thigh; she was absolutely feverish against his cool flesh. She writhed beneath him, angling her hips and squeezing his waist with her thighs. He positioned himself so that his cock rubbed against her core, just so that she moaned his name so, so softly. She ached for him in a way that she had never felt for anyone. She wanted him to slip in and take her, to reap the benefits of being with her. His thick, throbbing cock rocked against her, stiff and hard as stone.

He sat back on his knees and took her wrists, lifting her hands above her head. Pinning her wrists with one hand, he stretched out and held himself up with his free arm.

"Watch me," he murmured softly, burying his face in her neck. His tongue slipped out to taste her, to feel her skin tense beneath him.

He lifted his head just enough to stare into her eyes; the gray, fluid depths stared back at him, filled with so many things. He found a lot of trust, even more desire, and most of all he believed he found love. He hoped she saw the same things in his eyes.

With one heavy thrust, he pushed into her, sliding through all the barriers she had built around herself. She cried out his name, her fists clenched together in a tight tangle. Everything, all his doubts, all his thoughts, all the walls around him collapsed; her muscles squeezed him, tightening so deliciously hard around him as she tried to accommodate for his size. She strained against him as he thrust again, pulling back out and shoving in unrelentingly.

He groaned against her throat, her name pulling his lips apart in the middle of a mess of unconnected thoughts. He wanted her, needed her, and when she cried out again, he kissed her.

He thrust harder, faster, delighting in the sounds she made, reveling in the way she twisted against him, burying himself over and over again in her heat. He ground his hips down against her as he thrust, ripping a hard groan from her lips. He could feel himself quickly losing his grip, the rolling waves of climax edging nearer to him. He held it in, waiting until her heat screamed around him, until her muscles tore into him, until she moaned his name one final time. And then he left himself slip away and lost himself in the grip of climax along with her.

When she stopped trembling, she let out a long breath. His forehead rested against hers, his eyes coming up to meet hers again. She was searching them, praying silently that the other guy wasn't going to come through. Bruce knew without a doubt that the other guy was going to leave them alone this time; the Jolly Green Giant was too busy thumping victoriously against the walls of his cave.

Bruce rolled off of her and bundled her up in his arms. Her naked skin rested softly against his. He was completely and unrelentingly wrapped around her little finger.

Soon, she was breathing gently and evenly against his chest. She had found his hand and was grasping it tightly and holding it against her chest. Her soft, full breasts folded against his arm, and she was nice and warm in contrast to the cool air.

Bruce would have to actually tell her sooner or later what he felt. He hoped she already knew.

* * *

Bruce was tired, so, so very tired, but as he sat at the lab table, he couldn't stop smiling. Not even Tony and Steve's bickering could bring him down; he simply grinned at their antics and fiddled with the settings on the Tesseract tracker. He and Tony were so close to finding it; they were closing in, and right now it looked to be in the area of Europe.

Tony, however, was used to Bruce being quiet and mellow. He didn't quite know how to handle a happy Bruce, but he could certainly think of a few reasons why the adorable physicist (he could think of few other adjectives; Bruce was pretty cute) would be so happy. Probably got him a little somethin'-somethin' last night, which was more than Tony could say for himself.

Tony clapped Bruce on the back; a little bit of pride was welling up in his chest. "So how was it, big man?"

"How was what?" Bruce asked, trying to force back his grin.

"Dude, you can't even wipe that grin off your face," Tony scoffed. He pushed Bruce's work to the side and sat up on the lab table in front of him. "She must have given you something pretty spectacular."

"Well, I did have some pretty good cereal for breakfast," Bruce said. It was as close to actual teasing as Tony had ever seen him come.

"Come on, just tell me how you did it," Tony whined. "It's a biology question!"

"I don't know, Tony," Bruce finally replied. "The other guy just backed off for a while."

"Well, tell me how she was, then!" Tony persisted. What were simple guy questions to Tony were a bit more personal for Bruce.

Bruce gave in rather quickly to Tony's amusement. He was rather proud of his girl. "She was amazing."

Tony could hear something else in his science partner's voice. Against his normal choices, he stopped pressing on Bruce. "Glad you finally had a good time, man."

Bruce grinned at him. "Thanks."

* * *

Agent Ranger felt like she was going to die. At no time in her life had anyone ever worked her as hard as Agent Storm was working her now. No one had ever dared to make her work hard; she was the queen of every sport she tried, was top of every class. No one ever made her work because they didn't have to; excellence came naturally to her.

But this bitch was killing her.

Ranger was sure that Agent Storm had never been trained like this, but the tiny woman had the body of a longtime soccer player. She was muscular with thick thighs and toned calves and her torso was lean and compact. To wrap things up, she had the commanding voice of a soccer coach.

Storm had been making Ranger and Buchanan runs laps that day around the quarter-mile field. She had them doing a lot of strength training and endurance exercises. The gun range was used a lot, but not as much as the sheer physical torments. Hand-to-hand combat was also a personal favorite; Storm had not been joking when she said she had a killer roundhouse kick.

There was something else about Storm, though. It was the little things that belied her tough outward appearance to show that she had a softer center. She made sure they were drinking enough water, always made sure that anything strained or broken was wrapped, and always made sure that the two recruits had full, healthy meals.

Those gray eyes were something else, too. Buchanan loved them; he'd already told Ranger that they were enough to make him like her. Of course, he didn't mean in a romantic way (he was terrified of Dr. Banner). Ranger could see everything in Agent Storm's eyes. They were fluid, like smoke, and couldn't hide a single thing for people who wanted to look.

And today, Agent Storm couldn't stop smiling.

Ranger knew better than to ask; she'd get one of those terrifying looks and have to run more laps.

Finally, the two recruits were allowed to sit down and take a break. Ranger wasn't sure if all this crazy training was just building her up or if Storm was going easier on them, but the training wasn't so bad now. Ranger could make it back to her room now without crying from the pain. The scars and healing cuts on her knuckles from where they had been split so many times looked old now, and it didn't hurt so much.

As much as Ranger hated to admit it, Storm had been right about building them back up.

Ranger and Buchanan had yet to be sent on their first mission, though. Which was why they were surprised when Storm sat them down to give them their first assignment.

"In a few days, I'll be heading out with a team to Detroit for a quick mission," Storm began. They were all three resting on the workout benches in the gym. Stella laced her fingers together and rested her chin in the cradle. "I want you two to come with me."

"You think we're ready for that?" Buchanan asked. His gaze was stagnant, but his fingers were jittery. "What kind of mission is this?"

Storm stared at him, glancing from his green eyes to his nervous hands. "Those people that were after me are having a little get-together. We're going to break it up -the fun way."

Ranger was astounded. "An assassination mission?"

Storm's face told them nothing. "There will be six of us, including you two. The four experienced agents, myself and three others, will be sniping from the surrounding buildings. You two will be along for the ride, and that's it."

"Who are the targets?" Ranger asked. She had a nasty feeling in the pit of her stomach.

"Two of them are drug kingpins hoping to make a new alliance. One of them is Frankie Zito," Stella said. "My ex-boyfriend."

* * *

**A/N:** I know this chapter is short, guys, but next chapter is going to be plot development. Everything is settling nicely into place; just as I intended for it to. Also, a couple of people raised the question as to how one effectively wears porn-pants; you'll get a better representation the next time I feel like letting them get a little wild. This one was not my best, but I haven't written anything like that in a while. I just hope you guys like it, because I really did enjoy writing it.

**1/20/2013:** I did a little creative editing to that lovely sex scene. I added around three hundred words or so.


	12. Loved

_Love is being stupid together. ~Paul Valery_

* * *

Bruce, needless to say, was not exactly happy about Stella's latest business venture. She was literally traveling halfway across the world to kill her ex-boyfriend; it sounded like the plot of a bad Lifetime movie. Unfortunately, he had no authority to stop the mission, and Tony had to consistently remind him of this.

Well, he did for a while. Not long after Stella informed Bruce of the mission she would be leaving on in two days, the Tesseract was located.

Bruce, to his own surprise, was missing Tony and his constant attempts to set Bruce off. He missed having someone who actually understood what anti-electron collisions were, not that Stella didn't try (she had been a chemistry major, but that was beyond her comprehension). He was even starting to miss Tony and Steve's never-ending bickering.

The lab got quite lonely without the constant snark and sarcasm he had become accustomed to. While he did appreciate the quiet, he kept having to remind himself that when the rest of the team got back from Germany, there would be an infinite amount of yelling and arguing and hustle and bustle. They would be figuring out what to do with the Tesseract. The Helicarrier would also be playing host to Loki, resident evil baddie.

And they would have to house him in Bruce's cage.

Stella did her best to give him something to do, but quickly realized that he wasn't much use in the realm of torturing the bodies of recruits. Hand-to-hand combat was not his specialty, and he couldn't hit the broad side of a barn with a firearm. She left him in the lab with his science and brought him his supper, and that was the extent of her ability to abate some of the absence.

Well, that wasn't the extent, but they couldn't very well do the more exciting thing in a lab full of cameras, especially when they were both supposed to be working.

Speaking of that, Bruce had two days to work on his verbatim skills. He had two days to tell Stella how he felt before she left. He wouldn't have been pushing himself so hard, had the circumstances been different. They were two people who happened to live somewhat dangerous lives, and who knew if she would come back from this mission? The other guy would fend off anything that threatened him, but she was vulnerable.

Oh, he had no doubt that she could take care of herself. The twenty minutes he had spent "helping" with hand-to-hand combat had shown him that she was fully capable of taking on men twice her size. However, all it took was one stray bullet, and she could be taken from him, along with his heart.

Tonight, he would tell her.

* * *

Nick Fury had a major headache. This was not the kind of headache where one takes a couple aspirin and deals with it, this was the kind of headache that crippled entire empires. He got these headaches a lot, and a couple hours on the shooting range could usually bring it down a couple of notches, but not today. He merely succeeded in wasting about four hundred dollars worth of ammunition.

He had a team of people who he wasn't even entirely sure were completely sane running around the world to stop a madman with a perpetual, living nuclear bomb. These people were going to stop this madman and bring him to the Helicarrier in hopes that they could get the perpetual, living nuclear bomb under control. Fury tried to stay hopeful, but that kind of mission was guaranteed to get screwed up.

The number of people annoying him went up exponentially every day. An influx of agents were constantly coming in and out of his office. He was so busy, in fact, that he hadn't played a single game of solitaire since the Avengers boarded the Helicarrier, and he feared that his head might explode.

Fury vowed that when this mess was taken care of, he was going to go have a beer. A big one. In Maui or something, far away from the confines of his office.

Finally, when the number of agents in his office surpassed fire safety standards, he elbowed his way out and fled down to the land of the pencil-pushers -the place that was almost deserted.

Agent Storm wasn't in her office, but that wasn't unusual. She was never in her office even when she wasn't training recruits; he didn't expect her to be there now, especially when she had to people to train.

Storm's force of habit showed when Fury decided to head up to the shooting range and check in. She was blowing away target after target with an assault rifle that was nearly bigger than she was. The Marine she recruited was following suit and keeping up just fine, but the girl she hired was having trouble managing.

Storm's eyes scanned over the female recruit. She set her rifle to the side and began following the motions to correct the recruit's stance. Storm spread the girl's legs, pushed the rifle up her shoulder, and made the girl flatten out her belly.

"Stand tall," Storm instructed the girl. "Shoulders back, legs apart. Don't aim for too long, you'll get shaky. If you get tired, put the gun down and rest for a minute. Don't freak out when it kicks you, either."

The recruit nodded her head. She took aim at the cloth dummy downrange, gently squeezed the trigger, and fired. The rifle boomed and snapped back and the girl screamed, nearly dropping the gun. Storm snatched it away from her and flipped the safety on.

"I told you not to freak out!" Storm yelled. She settled the gun back into one of the grooves on the wall, and glared at the Marine when he started to snicker.

"I've never shot a gun in my life!" the recruit screamed back.

Storm eyed the girl coolly. "I apologize. It's my fault for starting you out on the big guns. I guess I should have started you out on the lower grade weapons."

The girl scratched her head dejectedly. "I can handle it. It just surprised me."

The Marine cut in. "Next time you get surprised, don't drop the gun."

"I didn't drop it this time!" the girl snapped at her partner.

"Both of you -shut up!" Storm yelled. She crossed her arms and gave them one of her glowering looks.

Fury took this moment to intercede in the scene before him. "If I may cut in, I'd say that you all could use a lesson on safety. Even you, Storm. It seems like your vacation has made you forget a few things."

He could tell she was fighting the urge to roll her eyes. Storm had a reputation for being unnecessarily tough on her trainees, but whether that was related to the future success of all of her former subordinates was still in debate. No one quite knew whether she picked people who were extraordinarily talented or if she beat the talent into them.

"If I may say, Director, I'd have a lot more practice if you would have sent me to Germany," Storm said, raising her eyebrow. So she was bitter; Fury didn't have time for bitterness.

"Deal with it, Agent Storm," the Director said, and stalked off. He had more pressing matters to attend to (solitaire).

* * *

Agent Ranger quietly sneaked away from from training that afternoon to head down to R&D. She would rather be anywhere but training, and she was really starting to regret applying for this job. If she went down to R&D, no one would look for her there.

There was only one person in that lab, and as long as she didn't say a word, Dr. Banner probably wouldn't either.

The white halls waved past, and she approached the main lab in the department. The automatic doors slid open to accommodate her. She took a seat at one of the many lab stations and proceeded to boot up one of the complicated new computers. It hissed and whirred at her as she typed in her username and passcode.

Bruce cut his eyes in her direction, rather bemused that she had gone to all that trouble to escape Stella. Unfortunately for her, this was probably the first place Stella would come to, even if it was just to tell him to keep an eye out for the missing agent. After a moment of watching her tinker around on some social site, he went back to his work at hand.

The level of awkwardness began to slowly escalate, as neither one of them said anything to the other person. Finally, Bruce, being the responsible adult, put down the blowtorch he was holding and spoke up.

"What seems to be the problem, Agent Ranger?" Bruce asked. He flipped the switch on the torch and turned it off.

The girl twisted around in her spinning chair. "Your girlfriend is a bitch."

"So you're going to solve your problem by hiding from her?" Bruce asked, raising an eyebrow. He would never truly understand women.

"Wow, you're not even going to protest that? How bad is she?" Ranger asked, crossing her arms.

Bruce sighed. "She's not a bitch, she's just being hard on you. She likes a challenge, which is probably why she hired you."

"Is that why she's dating you, then?" Ranger snapped. She saw the darkened look in the doctor's eyes and immediately regretted what she said.

Bruce turned his blowtorch back on and went back to his work, whiling away his time by perfectly adhering a stubborn weld into place. He could understand why Stella was being hard on her, but perhaps this girl was turning out to be more than what Stella could break. The agent was certainly a piece of work.

Ranger uncrossed her arms. "I'm sorry, Dr. Banner."

Bruce shook his head. "No, you're not. People like you rarely are, unless it's about something that affects you."

"I really didn't mean-

Bruce cut in, setting the blowtorch off to the side again. "To answer your question, she's not a bitch. She's been through a lot in the last year, and I think she's put up a pretty thick shell of armor."

Ranger glared at him skeptically. "You've been through a lot more than she has. I read your file. It's a lifetime of misery."

"You can't compare people's hardships," Bruce responded. "For example, my life has gotten exponentially better in the past few months."

The past week or so had been a different story, but as far as his personal life went, it had been overtly positive.

"Even though Storm got you captured and brought here?"

"She didn't get me captured," Bruce said, smiling in his knowing way. "If I'd been captured, I wouldn't be here at all, and neither would a lot of the agents."

"You came here of your own free will?"

"So did you."

Ranger huffed, crossed her arms back, and twisted back around in her chair. She would have preferred if he hadn't started a conversation at all. Nothing could convince her that Storm was being hard on her to make her better.

Speak of the devil, and she shall appear.

The door of the lab whooshed open, and the thump of heavy combat boots penetrated the air in the sterile lab. The smell of lemons was also pretty strong, and Ranger didn't have to turn around to know who it was.

"Hide in the gym next time," Stella said quietly. "I won't look there."

"Yeah, right," Ranger said. She got up and left without another word, her boots slamming against the marble floor.

Stella sat down in the chair that Ranger abandoned and observed Bruce while he worked. She knew he preferred quiet while he concentrated, so she kept her questions to herself.

"So how unfair does she think her life is right now?" Stella said finally, unable to keep quiet any longer.

"You are her personal circle of hell."

"It only gets worse from here," Stella said, sharing a look with Bruce. He knew she was right.

* * *

A small black bag sat on the foot of the bed in Stella's quarters. It had been nearly filled to the top with civilians clothes, a stealth suit, canvas shoes, boots, and a black evening gown (she had learned the hard way that one of these was nearly always needed for long missions) complete with heels. At the bottom of the bag, a gun lay hidden; it was an extra precaution. To the right side of the bag lay a small stack of papers that included the details of the mission.

She had one more day to prepare her recruits and her team. Starting tomorrow, she would begin the inspection on them. They would have to pass every one of her checkpoints to be able to participate in the mission.

This particular mission was an assassination. She had been assured by Fury that it would take no more than two or three days, and then she would be back on the Helicarrier.

Her team was going to crash a party. Not a lot of parties ended in a triple murder, but this one would. Five men with sniper rifles would be positioned on the surrounding rooftops. Stella would be impersonating her sister down at the party.

Bruce sat with his legs crossed at the head of the bed. He had read through the mission details already and was lost in his own thoughts. The whole mission didn't seem like a particularly good idea, or perhaps he just didn't want Stella to go. It would be a different story if she was the one on the rooftop, but she would be consorting with dangerous killers.

But he couldn't do anything about it. Stella finally zipped up her bag and set it to the side next to the television, which Bruce turned on. The Helicarrier got every channel, but the reception for most of them was shoddy because they were in the middle of the ocean and almost completely out of range.

The only channel in range was TLC, and now Bruce was being forced to watch What Not to Wear while Stella ogled the pretty clothes. That was okay though; she was wrapped safely in his arms while he kissed her cheeks and nose and tickled her sides. She squirmed in his grasp, giggling.

He flipped her over and pinned her down, kissing her long and slow. She tasted like lemons as well as smelled like them, but she was sweet and savory instead of sour. She looked up at him, smiling, her grey eyes sliding over his face.

He smiled back down at her, and her heart pounded in her chest. His smile was still completely irresistible.

"Can I tell you something?" Bruce asked. His heart beat nervously.

"Of course," she replied. She stretched her back.

"I love you, Stel," he said. He could hear the blood pump thickly in his ears.

"Really?" she asked, delighted when he nodded. "I love you, Bruce."

* * *

**A/N:** I apologize for the wait, guys. My schedule has been so crammed that I haven't been able to write. I'm going to try and get the next chapter out in the next couple of days, and that one will have more of the Avengers in it (and Loki!). Thanks for the support everyone! :)


	13. Resigned

_I hope life isn't a big joke, because I don't get it. ~Jack Handey_

* * *

The Avengers had returned from their mission, and they had Loki in tow behind them.

Stella had her pack thrown over her shoulder and was waiting for the rest of her team to show up when she was ushered off to the side so that the loading bay doors could open. The ship zoomed in through the open doors, and Natasha docked it quickly and smoothly, much better than a lot of the pilots could do. The bay doors of the little shuttle lowered, and Loki was marched out by Steve and Tony while a tall hunk in medieval armor followed closely behind them.

A group of men clad in black Kevlar suits took hold of Loki and trained their guns on him. Stella, abandoning her post, stepped in time behind the tall man and followed them down to the cell in R&D. She glanced at Bruce through the window as he watched the group slip past, and she winked at him. He smiled and blushed went back to his work.

It was a long walk down to the holding cell. The only noises made were the thick thump-thump of the agent's combat boots, the tall guy's armored shoes, the heavy leather swish of Loki's armor, and the occasional clack-and-clank of the agent's rifles. For a madman with a bomb, Loki was being terribly quiet.

Stella wanted to find out why.

Director Fury was waiting for them down at the entrance of the holding cell. He typed in a pin number and the door whooshed open, revealing a gaping hallway that formed into a cul-de-sac with a large glass cell. The agents prodded Loki forward, but the tall man stayed in the hallway with Fury. Stella followed the guards in.

Fury grabbed her shoulder. "You have a mission to see to, Storm."

She shook his hand off her shoulder and grinned cheekily at him. "How many other mind readers are in the vicinity?"

Fury was quiet for a moment, his visible eye boring into hers with an angry fire. "Five minutes, Storm. See if you can figure anything out. Then get back to the shuttle. I have business with our prisoner, too."

"As you wish," Stella replied, tipping an imaginary hat as she swept down the long metal hallway.

One of the guards was locking the cell door behind him and typing in the pin number to activate all the safety measures. Stella waited for him to leave and leaned against the guard rail that rimmed the cell's surroundings.

"Are you here to interrogate me, girl?" Loki asked, his voice positively dripping with skepticism. His voice was like honey, though, and his accent was very nearly archaic.

Stella shrugged, though being called girl got under her skin a bit. "Not really. Just investigating our esteemed guest."

"I'm not going anywhere, you'll have plenty of time for that," Loki said rather haughtily.

"Yeah, this cell was built to hold in a god," Stella said, never taking her eyes off of him. She narrowed them suspiciously when he smiled.

"Or a beast," he said sweetly, tilting his head.

Suddenly, Stella had the awful sensation of something crawling around in her head. It was like a spider had worked its way through her skull and was dancing along the meat of her brain, forming webs and stopping here and there to burrow. She shook her head as if she was clearing water from her ears, but still the sensation stayed.

She looked up to find Loki grinning down at her. He opened his arms wide. "Tell me, girl, do you like this form? I find it fits me rather well."

The scuttling noise in her ear was like torture. She gritted her teeth and forced a smile back at him. "I'm a bit too old to be called 'girl,' and I've never been a huge fan of the whole BDSM leather thing that you've got going on."

"I am not aware of what BDSM means," Loki said thoughtfully.

Stella was ready to tear her hair out, to claw the meat from her brain, anything to get the awful scuttling noise to go away. There was an army of ants marching along the pathway of her brain, and each and every ant soldier was taking pleasure in nibbling her flesh.

And then something clicked in her head, and she realized what was happening. All the ancient gods could read the thoughts of mortals, and that was exactly what Loki was trying to do. Unfortunately for him, she knew what was happening.

Two could play at that game.

"Don't worry, I'm sure we can get one of these crazies to show you," Stella said. She broke Stage One, and pushed back at him.

The scuttling noise abruptly stopped, and she slowly let a tendril of thought reach out to the fallen god. Talking to him, seeing the madman in person had left a bitter taste in her mouth, and as long as she could keep him out of her head, she really wasn't concerned with breaking into his. She could feel him scrambling against the barrier in her head, feel the itching fingers of his mind probe hers.

He never lost the smile on his face. "You are much more than you appear to be, girl."

"You're not the first person to tell me that," she replied, the force of her probe starting to drain her.

Suddenly, the prisoner became serious, menacing. He lost his smile and glared at her with an icy intensity that she could feel chilling her skin. His hands pressed against the glass. "You fear the power your abilities give you. You fear the hold they have over others. You fear embracing them, you fear that you'll lose yourself to them. You weren't born with them, and therefore lack the necessary control to unlock their true potential."

Stella said nothing, but kept the icy wall in her head that served as the barrier between them erect.

"Lose yourself in them, Storm. Lose yourself to me. I can teach you all they possess, everything that you have the potential to be. You are terrified of the hurricanes you make in your head, afraid of how they tear into other's minds when you let them loose. And when you push a little harder, you are afraid of how they manifest."

Stella shook her head. "There's no way you could have learned that from less than five minutes inside my head."

"How very wrong you are," Loki answered smugly, crossing his arms. "You are already an open book. I can see everything that you are in your eyes."

"_'Mrs. Robinson, you're trying to seduce me..._'"

Loki stared at her quizzically. "I am not a female, therefore I can only assume that this is a popular Midguardian culture reference."

Stella turned around to leave, bent on ignoring him. She made it two steps before she was forced to stop and turn.

"Say hello to the beast for me," Loki said, that disgusting grin still making a slash on his face.

"It is not possible for you to even know about that," Stella snarled, her face a mask of pure livid anger.

"Tell me," Loki said, his voice becoming quiet. "How did it feel to lose yourself to a monster? How does it feel to love a man who cannot even control his most basic instincts? Does it frighten you to know that in a moment of passion, he may lose himself and turn destructive? That words spoken in anger may turn deadly? That a simple moment of enamored adoration could turn dangerous?"

Stella glared back at him. "Do you ask your girlfriends the same questions?"

Loki chose to ignore that. "More importantly, does it frighten him to know these things as well as you do?"

Stella turned around again and stalked away, but paused and called back over her shoulder. "He should know better than that."

"Goodbye, Agent Storm," he said, his voice still very low. She could, unfortunately, still hear his every word. "Good luck. You're going to need it."

Stella brushed past Fury and the taller man, her face set in grim annoyance. As she walked away, the itching fingers retreated, and she had a brief moment to slip into Loki's mind undetected.

She saw a small dark-boy all alone in his room. He sobbed quietly, determined not to let anyone hear his moment of weakness. His favorite toy lay broken before him, through no fault of his own. She could feel his pain, and she knew that the toy had been broken by the tall, blonde man. The boy knew it wasn't intentional, but that was why he was crying. He was sad because the tall man had not been paying a bit of attention to him at all, just like he never did.

Such overwhelming pain, Stella had never felt. She pulled back away from him, but now she knew. She knew why he did the things he did, why he desired power, why he would do anything to get it.

It was because he knew what it was to feel helpless. Powerless. Reviled. He knew the fear of continuing on by the grace of someone else's charity.

He knew fear, and so he caused it.

Stella's powers were based off of fear.

He could sense it, and that was why he had probed into her mind. That was why Loki had been interested.

Stella marched up to the Director and stared him straight in the eye. "After this mission in Detroit, you can find yourself another mind-reader. Consider the bullets fired my resignation."

* * *

Today seemed to be all about Stella and her stupid abilities. After leaving the room that housed Loki's cell, she'd marched straight up to R&D, determined to make the final stop on her list before heading up to the loading bay.

The doors slid open to welcome her into the pristine environment, and she waved to Tony and Steve as she walked by them. Bruce stood to himself, as usual, and he seemed to be ignoring the other two in the room.

Stella grabbed him in a fierce hug and pulled him close so that she could whisper in her ear. "When I get back, we're going to disappear again."

Louder, so that the other occupants in the room could hear, she said, "Wish me luck on this mission, I'll see you guys in a few days."

Bruce hugged her back and whispered in her ear, "I love you, Stel."

"I love you, Bruce," she whispered back, grinning against his ear.

She waved behind her and headed towards the door, but was stopped by Tony. He folded his arms and put forth his best bitch face, his feet spread apart in his aggressive stance.

"Hold it right there, girlie," Tony said. He was taller than her, and for once, Stella wished someone would just kneel so she could feel tall. "You and lover-boy aren't disappearing anywhere."

Did he have super hearing in addition to an ass-kicking suit?

"It just so happens that Dr. Banner is coming to play in my lab at Stark Tower," Tony said, sweeping his arm towards her gallantly. "In an effort to keep him from destroying New York, I'd like to invite you along and offer you a new job."

"I'm all ears for that one, Mr. Stark," she replied, sweeping under his outstretched arm. "After this mission, I'll be swelling America's unemployment rolls again. I already handed in my resignation to the Director."

"You're hired!" Tony said gleefully. "My new head of Human Resources."

"I can handle that," she said, as she slipped off to complete her final mission.

When she got to the ship, Agents Buchanan and Ranger were waiting for her, along with four other men. None of them said a word; the other four agents were getting in the zone, but Buchanan and Ranger just looked a little nauseated.

Stella threw them both bottles of water. "Drink up, and don't eat anything on the way there. We'll get food in Detroit."

"I don't think I can eat anything, Storm," Buchanan said, leaning his head against the side of the ship.

"You're going to have to," Stella said. She pulled her recruits over to the side and sat them down next to her. "Here's how this is going to go down. We're going to be at the base in Detroit so that we can get settled and ready. Tomorrow night, the four men that you see over there are going to be positioned on the rooftops of the area surrounding the party, because it's going to be outdoors."

"That's kind of dumb of them," Ranger said, shifting her eyes.

"They aren't known for being bright," Stella replied, shrugging. "Zito thinks that I'm my sister, and I'll be taking care of him. You two will be down at the party trying to corner the associates, or at least draw them into the open. Two of those men are our first line of fire; they'll be taking care of the associates. The blonde guy is keeping our escape route open. The final guy is our insurance. You two will be fitted with a coms system so that I can contact you in the event of an emergency."

"What kind of emergency should we be prepared for?" Buchanan asked. He still looked rather weak-kneed.

She looked him dead in the eye. "If I fail, you better be prepared not to."

"Are you planning to fail?" Ranger asked, alarmed.

"No, I have a gun and my abilities are a fail-safe, but you two are the backup for my backup," Stella said. She leaned back and let them question her.

"How do your abilities work?" Ranger asked. "You mentioned you can read people's minds, but you lost me with the whole hurricane thing."

Stella sighed. This was going to be a long flight. "My powers work on the premises of fear. I don't always use them for that, but that was what they were created to instill. I can't read minds, but I can feel people out and keep others with these same abilities out of my head. When I get inside your head, you'll start to hear a lot of wind and static, and we call it the hurricane. When I was given these powers, the people responsible didn't know that I'd be able to create a physical manifestation of the hurricane I cause. They thought I'd just be using it for mental torture."

"But how can you control that?" Buchanan asked, awed.

"For a long time, I couldn't," Stella said smirking. "Whenever I was mad, I'd walk around with a storm cloud over my head and it would rain on me."

"I bet that made it hard to do paperwork," Buchanan replied, fascinated.

"That was before the paperwork era of my job," Stella said. "Torturing people from the inside is only the first stage. During the second stage, I can make gale-force winds. The third stage is when the party starts. After that, the hurricane comes around full force."

"Do you think you'll have to use the third stage?" Ranger asked.

"I certainly hope not!" Stella said, smirking again. She crossed her arms.

"Why?" Ranger demanded. She narrowed her eyes at Stella.

"The only time I've ever used it, I blew up two skyscrapers and a city block," Stella said. "Next time I use it, S.H.I.E.L.D. is authorized to terminate me."

Ranger and Buchanan gaped at her. Stella snickered quietly at their distressed faces.

"Chill out, guys. I doubt I'll ever use Stage Three. In fact, I probably won't ever use Stage Two again, either," she said. "This is my last mission."

Even Ranger looked a little distraught.

* * *

**A/N: **Okay, guys, I'm getting back on schedule with my writing and posting. I honestly can't believe I have made it this far with this story. _You guys are the reason I've stayed motivated through everything that has happened to me while writing this story._ It has become my outlet for everything that I'm feeling, a constant in a tumultuous life. Knowing that everyone is supporting me, if only so I can continue this story, is an amazing thing.

I think I owe you guys this much: Thundersteel has brought to my attention that perhaps I need to clarify just a tad on how the Hulk works in my story. I'm going to copy from the conversation we had (I really hope they don't mind), but here it is.

"My idea was that something so big and consuming as the Hulk couldn't possibly be completely reliant on Bruce's mood and heart rate alone. I think that, drawing from the scene where he becomes the Hulk during the final fight, the Hulk is based on what his body is doing, but has a little free will as well, and Bruce likewise can call on him when he needs the Hulk. As Tony hinted, the Hulk is a manifestation of Bruce's multiple personalities and is there to protect him, not to ruin his life. So while Bruce may never run a marathon, the Hulk (I think) does want Bruce to have a little happiness in his life (as in the case where I wrote the Hulk backing off while they got in a little fun time). The time Bruce spends trying to fend off the Hulk is the Hulk reminding him that he's there."

If you read through this exorbitantly long author's note, kudos to you! :) But that's how I envision the movie!verse Hulk works. If not, this is my take on it. I think all this support has gone to my head. I'm quoting myself! :)


	14. Deployed

_Love is the answer, but while you are waiting for the answer, sex raises some pretty good questions. ~ Woody Allen_

* * *

Bruce was sleeping alone for the first time in quite a while. He tossed and turned, but to be fair, he didn't think it was because Stella was gone. When he climbed into bed, he hadn't been in a particularly good mood anyway. Just after she left, the arguing and bickering escalated, and Bruce had never seen grown men and women argue like such children.

The fact that they had a new guest didn't help matters much, either. Thor, the god of thunder and Loki's adoptive brother, had decided to help bring Loki in. He was useful in many ways, from his powers to his knowledge of the inner workings of Loki's mind, but he was just a tad difficult to deal with, especially when he was without sleep. Thor was, unfortunately, unfamiliar with the concept of an inside voice as well.

Bruce decided that his irritability was because Stella wasn't there. It was freezing in the bedroom, and without another body to warm his, he knew he would never get to sleep. He liked that Stella always rubbed his back before he went to sleep; he didn't anticipate that he might have trouble getting to sleep without her.

He supposed it was because he was worried. She had a dangerous job and she was on a dangerous mission, it was only natural that he would be concerned. He just wanted her to come back.

Perhaps he was being a bit selfish. He had to share her, obviously, but that didn't mean that he wanted to. She had to work, though; it was her job and she was good at it. She would be fine. Bruce had never had much to be selfish about, though, and he just wanted to keep her all to himself. He was starting to suspect that the other guy had something to do with what he was feeling (he almost never got jealous or selfish), but he just felt like pouting.

Bruce was a world-class nuclear physicist, the most respected in his field, he could transform into an indestructible eight-foot-tall green rage monster, and here he was pouting like a child (or Tony). He had to snap out of it. He had to ignore the gaping hole of absence in his heart. She had been gone on her mission six fucking hours and it felt like the end of the stupid world. This would not do.

He decided that he would focus on his work until Stella returned. He had located the Tesseract, but now there was the matter of trying to stabilize it. Before he could leave, he had to do that much. From now on, it was all work and no play (not that he was happy about that).

* * *

The bunkers at the Detroit base really sucked. Stella hated them, especially when she was the one on the bottom bunk. At least the last time she was in Detroit, a drug kingpin had been paying for her apartment. Being in constant peril had made up for the fact that sleeping in the bunks was only slightly better than sleeping on a stack of cardboard.

Ranger had gotten the idea during the night to get up and purposefully step on Stella's hand when she went to get a glass of water. When she got back into her bunk, her toes came within an inch of Stella's nose.

Ranger was going to get her ass kicked in the morning.

About one a.m., just after Ranger had gotten back in her bunk for the fifth time, Stella put her feet against the bottom of Ranger's exposed mattress and pushed it as hard as she could. The girl screamed, rolled sideways, and landed face down on the hard floor.

Ranger's head popped into view over the side of Stella's bunk, and she looked rather pissed. Stella glared daggers at her, daring her to try something. She may have been eight inches shorted than Ranger, but they were both well aware that Stella would floor her ass in a fight. While Ranger had gotten stronger, it was nowhere near what eight years of training bought.

Ranger grumbled a bit, then climbed back up on her bunk, this time without stepping anywhere near Stella. For the next hour, every five minutes she felt Stella push her feet against the bottom of her mattress.

Stella knew that they both needed to get some sleep, and that tomorrow was a very important day, but she was simply having too much fun to stop.

Around two-thirty that night, Buchanan finally had enough of listening to the two women whisper angrily at each other. He got up from his adjacent bunk and stood next to them until they stopped. Then he leaned over and flicked them both on the forehead and returned to his bed.

Neither of them said another word.

Their alarm clock finally rang at eight that morning. The snipers were up and gone without even a cup of coffee, but the Stella, Ranger, Buchanan, and the insurance man stayed at the base. They sat around the dining table, each with a cup of coffee in hand.

Stella firmly believed that you could tell what kind of person someone was by the way that they took their coffee. Buchanan took his with just a little milk and a little sugar, and he sipped it long and hard each time he took a drink. Ranger packed hers full of milk and sugar until it was so light, it was almost cream-colored. The insurance man, whose name was Marcus, took his with just a little milk and no sugar. Stella's was completely black, and so strong that Ranger commented on how it tasted like tar.

Marcus had stayed behind to fit Ranger and Buchanan with trackers and coms systems. He would be leaving shortly so that he could set up shop where they would be meeting after the mission was finished. He was, in Layman's terms, the getaway driver. He monitored all the necessary communications and the positions and whereabouts of every team member.

He pulled two clean, packaged syringes out of his bag, along with two alcohol wipes and two small bandages (they had Care-Bears on them). He motioned for the two recruits to sit in front of him.

"I'm surprised you two haven't already been tagged," he said, swiping the alcohol pad along Buchanan's shoulder. He ripped the plastic package in half and lined up the syringe against Buchanan's skin. He mashed the plunger quickly, and Buchanan winced. "Seems like they would have done this after you were hired."

Stella rolled the other package between her palms and glanced at Ranger deviously. "I don't think S.H.I.E.L.D. anticipated on sending brand new recruits into the field so quickly, especially since they're just HR."

"Yeah, that's pretty unexpected," Marcus replied, plucking the other syringe away from Stella. He ripped open another alcohol pad and swiped it over Ranger's exposed shoulder. "Why are they here, by the way?"

"Because I want them to be here," Stella said. Sipping her coffee, she watched with some amusement as Marcus jabbed Ranger with the syringe. She winced and quickly slapped on her bandage.

"We all want a lot of things, Stella. For example, I want to know why Fury let you have your way on this?" Marcus said, balling up the plastic and throwing it in the trash. "It's not like they've been especially trained or anything."

"I'm training them," Stella said, deadpan.

A shiver ran down Marcus's spine. He had heard all the stories. "Then they are lucky to be alive. That vacation must have softened you up."

"I'll soften your head up in a minute if you don't finish your job," Stella said, rolling her eyes.

"Bullseye," Marcus said, chuckling. "I seem to have hit a nerve."

"Don't test me," she mumbled, but she was almost too tired to back it up. She would be taking a nap before they left for the party, and so would Ranger. "Just get the coms system on them so I can keep in touch."

"Why do we need to get fitted for a coms system?" Ranger asked. "It's just an earpiece."

Stella smiled wickedly. "Not exactly."

* * *

Five hours later, Buchanan, Ranger, and Stella were all scratching gently at the thumb and forefinger of their left hand.

"Why can't they just give us earpieces?" Buchanan asked. It had taken a couple of tries to get his system in, and his fingers were swelled and sore. "Won't it look kind of stupid talking on a finger phone?"

Stella didn't like the systems any more than they did. "They're a lot less obvious than an earpiece, and unless we really need to talk to you, the only thing you have to do to tell us what you need to tell us is put your hand to your mouth. Just go with it."

Ranger rubbed her fingers together viciously. "I hope they take them out."

Stella had her fingers wrapped around an ice pack. "They do. This is a lot better than when we had earpieces, at least. We lot quite a few agents because of that."

Buchanan followed her example and pulled an ice pack out of the first-aid kit. "So when are we putting these things to good use?"

"In about two hours," Stella said. She strode over to one of the bags and put it up on the kitchen table. "I have presents for you two."

The first thing she pulled from the bag was a long, deep violet-colored evening dress, which she handed off to Ranger. She extracted a pair of nude-colored slingbacks from the bag as well and handed them to the girl, along with a diamond necklace and matching earrings.

"That's for you to wear tonight. I have makeup as well," Stella said absently, not seeing the look of astonishment on Ranger's face. "I took your uniform sizes a couple of weeks ago and had this tailored to fit you."

"Storm," Ranger began, fingering the gown. "This is gorgeous."

"What? Did you think that I live in that ugly spandex uniform?" Stella scoffed. She pulled a suit from the bag along with a pair of leather loafers and a Rolex and handed the clothes off to Buchanan. "I've had to do this before. I know what to wear. Also, it doesn't hurt that I had Fury's credit card, which is why your dress is Prada and his suit is Gucci."

"Good deal," Buchanan said, appreciatively.

"There's two bathrooms here, along with shampoo, hair dryers, straighteners, curling irons, and everything else that you could possibly need to look fabulous," Stella said. "You two go first. Ranger, I'll do your hair; there's something I wanted to try out with that dress."

An hour later, Ranger and Stella stepped out of the bathroom. Ranger's hair had been curled and pinned to the side in a bun, her hairpins glinting in the light. Her dress had been zipped and tucked, and her makeup was freshly done. Stella had done an exemplary job with both Ranger's hair and makeup.

"You know, I was crap at this kind of stuff when I was in high school," Stella said, smiling to herself. Too many bad hair days had resulted in a ponytail and a headband, and she had never even bothered with makeup other than the basic stuff.

"I wasn't," Ranger said, closing the bathroom door behind them. "I probably put more time into the way I looked than anything else."

Buchanan hadn't come out of the bathroom yet, but Stella didn't have time to waste. She rummaged through her bag and pulled her dress and shoes from it, along with a necklace set that matched Ranger's. She ran back to the bathroom and began her routine.

She showered quickly and jumped out, drying herself off just as quickly. While the straightener heated up, she blow-dried her hair and ran the brush through it. When the appliance was hot enough, she set to work burning the crap out of her hair so it would flatten out. With her hair done, she poked a few pins in it and set it off to the right side, creating a sweeping asymmetrical wave of blonde. Her makeup was done with the same quick efficiency, and she was in her dress and shoes shortly after.

Buchanan and Ranger were in their formal best, and both stared at her as she exited the bathroom. They were accustomed to her hair up and that awful uniform, just as she was accustomed to the same thing regarding their dress. At that moment, though, they were all thinking relatively the same thing. They all looked pretty damn good.

Ranger whistled at her and winked. "Dr. Banner wouldn't be able to keep his hands off of you if he was here."

"Thanks," Stella said, beaming. "You both look pretty great yourselves. Of course, I did pick out your outfits."

Buchanan and Ranger stood up, and he held out his arm for her to take. "Are we about to get this show on the road, then?"

Stella held up a finger. "Not quite. I have some more presents to give out."

She reached into the bag that previously was home to the dress and the tux and pulled out three holsters and three handguns. She set the guns on the table and began fiddling with the straps of the holsters. The first one was for her, and she slipped it around her thigh and hooked the strap to her underwear. She fixed Ranger's in a similar fashion and handed it to her.

"Take off your jacket," she ordered Buchanan. She twisted the holster around his shoulders and tightened it until it was snug.

Next, she picked the first gun up, checked the safety, and loaded it, careful to make sure the safety still was on when she slipped it into her holster. She did the same for the remaining guns and handed them to their new owners.

"Now, we're ready to go," Stella said.

Both of her teammates looked rather nauseous now.

* * *

Bruce rested his face in his hands. The headache that had wormed its way through his skull thirty minutes ago now felt as though it was creating a fissure at the back of his head. The fact that everyone was yelling and bickering did absolutely nothing to help his condition, and he was getting more annoyed by the second.

Of course, they didn't even get the Tesseract from Loki. They got the bad guy, but the bomb was nowhere in sight. That made his job a hundred times harder.

The computer beeped, telling them where the Tesseract was.

He left, with Natasha following behind him, talking to him, or trying to.

And then an explosion rocked the ship, and a ton of steel and rubble fell.

Agonizing pain, Natasha trying to calm him down, everyone screaming and running. All he could think of was the pain, how he knew this would end so badly, how many people would die because of him this time.

And then he was gone.

* * *

**A/N:** Alright, guys, the mission is finally underway. Next chapter is going to be all about the mission, and probably won't have much (if any) Bruce. We'll have some more of him after the mission and his 'hulking out,' though. If all goes well, it may end up for a two-chapter mission instead of just a single one. And thanks for following and reviewing. Like I said last chapter, it really means a lot that you guys keep reading an supporting me. I've been going through a lot in the past month, and it's all going swimmingly again. I just wanted to thank you guys again. :)


	15. Depended

_People who do not understand themselves have a craving for understanding. ~ Wilhelm Stekel_

* * *

The specially armored car that Stella was in felt especially cramped. She was just a little worried that Ranger and Buchanan may be close to throwing up from sheer panic, but neither of them made a move. Wiggling this way and that, she attempted to create a little room, but unfortunately she had gotten stuck on the hump in the backseat because she was the smallest.

Buchanan and Ranger pushed in on her, both too nervous to talk. Marcus was driving the car, the guy who would be holding open the escape route was in the passenger seat. Stella seemed to be the only person who wasn't nervous, and SHE was supposed to be impersonating her sister.

Stella was fairly certain Chandra knew that she would be there (the safest bet was to assume that she knew), and there was always the off chance that she would show up just to fuck the whole thing up, but even Chandra wanted Zito dead. Whatever apprehension that crawled into Stella's mind was pushed quickly aside. There was no room on this mission for doubts.

Stella knew that she had to break the silence. She had a few last matters to discuss with her recruits.

"When we get there, disperse and mingle. Don't forget which associate you're supposed to be tailing," Stella said, rubbing her fingers together absently. They still itched faintly from the installation of the coms system. "Keep watch for anything suspicious and try to listen in on the coms system every so often. If the matter is truly urgent, a distress signal can be activated and your index finger will glow depending on who sends it. For example, if I were to send it, it would be orange, Buchanan's is green, and Ranger's is purple. Remember that, too."

Buchanan blushed lightly. "I still can't believe you want me to seduce one of the kingpins."

Stella rolled her eyes. "Look, you don't have to sleep with the guy unless you really want to get into the role. I never went that far with it, but I've had to do the same thing before. In fact, I AM doing the same thing."

"I have to do the same thing, too," Ranger piped up, rolling her eyes at him. "I'm not exactly enjoying the fact that I have to seduce someone."

"You'll get used to it," Stella said. "You'll also get better at it. I haven't had the chance to train you like this, but this should be an eye-opener for us all."

"No kidding," Buchanan said, leaning his head against the window.

Buchanan was so nervous that he could hardly think. His time as a soldier had consisted, not of assignments and such, but of medical practice. He had been a nurse, not a fighter. Obviously, there had been basic training, but that was it. He had hardly gotten much training with Stella either, and that had been mostly physical. He was not ready for anything like this.

He could hardly get a date on his own, much less seduce anyone like this.

The car pulled up to a gate, and Marcus stuck his head out the window. The intercom system at the front crackled to life, and a deep male voice issued from the tinny speakers. He asked for the name, which Marcus gave as Storm and guests. The gate creaked slowly open, and Marcus drove through.

There was a line of cars rimming the circular driveway, and many had resorted to parking on the grass. People filed out of their cars in twos and threes, and two or three limos pulled up and drove away. Marcus followed behind a particularly long white limo and let them out at the front door.

As they departed from the confines of the cramped car, they formed into a tight group, as a few other had done. These were the people who had yet to have a drink and go mingle.

Stella bit her thumbnail to mask the fact that she was trying out the coms system. "Can everyone hear me?"

A sharp buzz shot through Buchanan's hand. She had not warned him that would happen. He placed his hand next to his head and fidgeted with his hair. Next to him, Ranger adjusted her earrings.

Stella repeated the question and came through loud and clear.

"Alright, this is it," Stella said, finally feeling the weight of her responsibility. "Dave, go keep the back door in the kitchen open. Ranger and Buchanan, go find your target. I'm going off to find mine."

Buchanan watched the proceedings as if in a dream. Dave ran off to do his duty, and Stella inhaled slowly. As she exhaled, something in her changed. She was no longer the hard case agent, she was a trained killer, a master of her craft. She was copying her sister's persona down to a T, though Buchanan had never met her, and she exuded a sort of blatant sexual deviance that Buchanan was now certain that her sister probably had.

Storm was a completely different person altogether, and as she sauntered off, Buchanan realized just how far he had before he could even touch her level of professionalism. She was a walking blade, a silent destroyer, rolled into a short, pretty woman. For some people, she had been the end of days, the final insult before darkness. She could carry the grim reaper around in her pocket, and no one would know.

Buchanan shook his head and looked at his partner. Ranger shrugged and slipped off to hunt down her prey.

There were two taller buildings on either side of Zito's mansion, and Buchanan was more than fairly certain that there were two snipers on the tops of those buildings waiting to be given the word. The third assassin was probably on top of the mansion itself. He hoped that he could draw the kingpin out quickly and efficiently so that they could leave.

Buchanan wandered around, skirting around people who were already nearly half-drunk. Someone, a butler he supposed, forced a glass of champagne into his hand. He gingerly set it down, not because he wouldn't like to drink it, but because it was a generally bad idea. He had a pretty decent alcohol tolerance, but he was sure Stella (and the rest of S.H.I.E.L.D.) would be a little pissed if he drank on the job.

As if his mind was being read, he felt his fingers buzz. He fidgeted with his hair a bit and lifted his finger to his ear.

"You may want to go get another glass of champagne, Crossfire," Stella said quietly into his ear. It was the first time he had heard his codename. "Everyone is drinking and we want you to blend in, unless you think you can pull off awkward and endearing at a society party."

Buchanan snatched a glass from a butler that wandered by. "Perhaps awkward and endearing is something that the kingpin likes. Do you know what his preferences are?"

"Well," Stella began, "if you want to judge aesthetics by his lovely date who is standing next to him at the punch bowl, you are exactly what he likes."

Buchanan glanced over in that direction and saw a short, thickly muscled man standing next to a tall, buff blonde in tight leather pants and a sports jacket.

"Get him into the open, Crossfire," Stella said with some finality. "The tennis court would be an optimal place."

Buchanan took a swig of champagne. He would need it.

This was his moment to put on his own game face. He envisioned himself as an instrument of death, and tried to carry himself in the imposing way that Stella had carried herself as she walked away. While it was much more difficult than he imagined, he knew that he could do it. He was ready.

He sauntered up to Meyers, the kingpin, and smirked at him. Meyers' date looked rather disgruntled, but the man was too drunk to say anything and stalked off onto the dance floor. The blonde twisted and starting grinding on everyone he saw, and Meyers glared at him and rolled his eyes.

"That is what I have to deal with on a regular basis," Meyers said, directing his comments at Buchanan.

Buchanan leaned against the table, easing himself into his character. "He must be your boyfriend or something."

"Formerly," Meyers replied, sighing. His voice was deep and gruff, which was surprisingly soothing. "I needed a date to this idiotic party."

"Not a fan of society things like this?" Buchanan asked. He was surprised at how easy this came to him. He couldn't even get a date on his own, and here he was, romancing some guy.

Meyers took a long swig of champagne. "Do I look like I'm having much fun?"

"Perhaps we could go somewhere a little more quiet, then?" Buchanan said sweetly. "I hear it's a lot of fun watching drunks play tennis."

Meyers grinned and extended an arm. "You read my mind, Mr...?"

Buchanan struggled to come up with a name. "Sawyer."

"You read my mind, Mr. Sawyer," the kingpin said, delighting when Buchanan took his arm. "Well, not really, but you've got a great idea."

Buchanan felt his fingers tingle sharply, and scratched at his ear so that he could hear. There was a lot of shuffling and a grunt of pain coming through the connection, and at first Buchanan thought it was a bunch of static.

Then Stella came through loud and clear. "Abandon your targets and leave them to the snipers. Zito knows we're here."

In the background, he heard mumbling. Stella laughed at something, and a heavy thunk smashed its way through the connection. Another grunt of pain followed.

"Crossfire to the main hall staircase, Soldier to the escape route!" Stella commanded, though her voice was strained with pain. "Zito's trying to get away! Stop him!"

There were two gunshots, and Stella was silent.

* * *

Neither Ranger nor Buchanan had paid any attention to what might have been Stella's last order for them. They bolted inside the house and headed up to the top floor, letting their instincts take hold.

There was only one room on the top floor, and when they burst into it, they found Stella. Her eyes were closed, and her shoulder and leg had been blown nearly open. Blood soaked her dress and flesh. As they approached, her eyes snapped open and glared at them with wildly feverish eyes.

Ranger sprinted over to her and knelt down beside her, Buchanan hot on her heels. They had committed a cardinal sin; they forgot to clear the corners of the room.

"Behind you!" Stella screamed, just as another gun was fired.

The bullet missed its target, but the gunman bolted as quickly as he could.

"Go get him! Kill him!" Stella ordered, motioning with the arm that she could move. "It's Zito!"

Buchanan did as he was ordered and charged after the killer. He was surprisingly fast, much faster than Buchanan, who was struggling to extract his gun from his shoulder holster. Zito fired two rounds behind him, both missing their mark by mere inches.

Buchanan finally ripped the gun from its bindings and charged down the stairs after Zito. He shot once, shot twice, shot three times and finally hit his mark. Blood blossomed at the back of Zito's white suit and he took a tumble down two flights of stairs.

Buchanan reached the bottom behind him, and wasted no time firing his weapon for a second time once he saw that Zito was still breathing.

This was not a movie. There would be no big villain speech for him. He had been killed like the dog he was, and he had possibly killed Stella, someone who Buchanan had grown to care for.

She could be a heinous bitch, but Buchanan regarded her as his friend, and now she could be dying. Zito had not gotten nearly half of what he deserved.

He rushed back upstairs to find Ranger holding her gun. She had ripped off pieces of her dress and tied them tightly around Stella's shoulder and leg to try to staunch the bleeding.

"I told you to head him off at the stairs," Stella said, her voice raspy. Her eyes were closed and she was leaning her head against the wall. "Is he dead?"

Buchanan nodded, too exhausted to speak. He went and slumped onto the floor next to Stella, who was trying not to show how much pain she was really in.

"If the snipers don't get them tonight, we'll get the other two later," Stella said quietly. "You got the most important one tonight. I expect that they'll have you head the mission when you get rid of the other two."

Ranger smacked her hand against the wall. "How are you even still conscious? What do you eat for breakfast that keeps you going?"

"The souls and dreams of small children and unicorns," Stella snapped back, wincing with pain.

"How'd he know about this?" Buchanan asked, taking the initiative to head off the bickering.

"He said someone tipped him off," Stella said, trying to move her shoulder. "My stupid sister, probably."

The fingers of their right hands buzzed sharply, pulling a moan of pain from Stella's throat. She just had to get shot in the right shoulder.

"Someone answer that," she said tersely. "I can't come to the phone due to the fact that my arm is pretty much useless."

Ranger pressed her fingers to her ears. Marcus was on the other end of the line. "Buchanan got him... Yes, she's up here, but she's been shot twice and we don't know how long she'll stay conscious... No, we can't move her! Get your ass up here and help us!"

Stella stared at her, her eyes unfocused. "Chill out, I've been shot in the stomach before. This is nothing..."

She slumped over, and the world became black.

* * *

Fury had been looking forward to his vacation in Maui for a week now, but with every passing day, it seemed as though his vacation would never come. Stella's mission had been a partial failure, and now one of his best agents was down for the count, even if this was her final mission anyway. His (very expensive) Helicarrier had nearly been wrecked by Dr. Banner, who was missing. Now a nutcase was on the loose, and Fury wasn't completely sure he was talking about Loki when he said that.

Now he had a bunch of temperamental delinquents with personality disorders jetting around the world to stop a lunatic with an army.

Yet somehow, he still had complete faith in them.

At the risk of setting Dr. Banner off again, he had neglected to tell him that his girlfriend was seriously wounded. Fury wasn't sure if that was because he feared for everyone's safety or because they simply couldn't find Banner after the Hulk propelled himself off of the ship.

Whatever the actual reason, he doubted that would be a pleasant conversation when it would eventually arise.

* * *

**A/N: **A few things to address, guys. First of all, thank you for being patient with me. This was supposed to go out Sunday, but I've had some trouble along the way, and it had to wait. Secondly, I bought Fable3 (yeah, I'm a year and a half late; this is what happens when you want to wait for the game to get cheaper). I fell in love with Logan, and now I'm contemplating starting an OC fic for him. Don't freak out! I'm finishing this fic before I even think about writing for that (if you're a Fable fan, keep watching out for it). I'm also thinking about starting a new Bleach fic (or revamping my Kenpachi Zaraki one), but that's not a goal for the foreseeable future.

Okay, enough with the shameless self-advertising. This is something VERY IMPORTANT. Next week, college classes start back for me, and I need to concentrate on them. I'm going to do my best to keep up the frequent, regular updates, but depending on my course load, I may have to start making this a Saturday occurrence. I'm going to TRY NOT TO LET THAT HAPPEN! I love writing for this fic too much to let it fall by the wayside, and it has become a conduit for everything I'm going through. I have it planned out to the very end, and I will be finishing it! So never fear, Stella and Bruce will not be abandoned!


	16. Sedated

_There's nothing that cleanses your soul like getting the hell kicked out of you. ~ Woody Hayes_

* * *

Marcus burst into the room where the shooting had taken place, his gun drawn and ready. Needlessly, more out of a force of habit, he cleared the corners while Buchanan and Ranger stared at him stupidly. He holstered his gun when a loud cough from Buchanan brought him to his senses.

"I think its a little too late for that, genius," Ranger snapped, sitting back on her heels.

Marcus ignored her and directed his gaze at Buchanan. "Our snipers are dead and the other two targets got away. It seems our escape route man was bought out by Zito and tipped him off."

"That would explain how he knew Storm wasn't her sister," Ranger said. She gestured down at Stella's unconscious form. "Maybe we should get her back to the base so we can hopefully keep her from dying."

Marcus nodded and held the door open while Buchanan eased Storm up into his arms. He did his best not to move her shoulder or leg, but without the necessary materials to make a stretcher and a dead man laying on the ground floor, it was a touch-and-go situation.

Stella's head bobbed up and down as the group sprinted down the stairs. Marcus handed out large bills to any of the servants they passed and told them to keep their mouths shut. The employees were happy to oblige him, and when they finally made it to the kitchen, the head chef (who had just been gifted a total of five-hundred dollars) even stopped to open the door for them on the way out.

They kept running for the car. Ranger jumped in the passenger's side while Marcus slid in and fumbled with the keys. Buchanan settled Stella lengthwise in the back and held her head in his lap. His fingers rested at her throat, slipping over her pulse. It was slow and sluggish, but it was going strong; the bleeding from her wounds had been staunched by the tight bandages wrapped around them.

Marcus swerved around a minivan and shot out of the parking lot. "Earlier, I tried to contact the snipers to see how they were faring, and no one answered. So, you know, I thought that was kind of weird; three snipers -looks like someone would pick up the phone."

Ranger had a pistol clutched in her shaking hand, her eyes flicking left and right, searching for anyone who may have been following them. As unwilling as she was to admit it, the few moments that she had been alone with her injured boss had been terrifying. Thinking that the agent might die had shaken Ranger far more than she wanted to accept.

Marcus continued on with his story, "I got out of the car so I could go check on them. I went around the back way into the mansion, but the chef opened the door and Dave apparently hadn't even shown up yet. The mansion sniper had his throat slit, and I used the scope of his rifle to see if the others were still alive. Both of them had been killed the same way."

Ranger was well aware that a fair amount of Stella's blood covered her leg. She couldn't bring herself to look down at her leg, nor could she turn around to see the woman in the back. She had no earthly idea as to how Buchanan was handling things as well as he was, but Ranger was now completely certain that she should never have taken this job. She couldn't do it.

Ten minutes into starting a conversation with her target, he completely disregarded her and left with someone else. She couldn't even keep someone's attention for long, even though personally she had no problem with such things. She chalked it up to nerves, but now she knew how completely unprepared for this job she was.

"So I headed up to where Zito's office was, which was where I last heard from Storm," Marcus said, his left hand, like Ranger's, firmly wrapped around a pistol. "I was a bit concerned by then, of course. That's when I tried contacting Storm again, and you guys answered."

Ranger had only been listening with half an ear. A blue Mustang swung into her peripheral vision, and she was staring it down with single-minded intensity. Something was wrong with it; it was far too close to them to be safe. The driver of the 'Stang gunned the engine and shot forward, directly into their path.

Marcus jerked the wheel, narrowly avoiding the car. He put the accelerator to the floor and screamed away, the 'Stang keeping hot on the back of them.

Marcus rolled down the window on her side. "Shoot them, Ranger!"

Her hands shook violently, and she didn't make a move. There was a loud crack, and the glass window next to Buchanan shattered.

"Ranger!"

This time, it was Buchanan yelling at her. The angry slice of the noise cut through the static inhibiting her moves, and she stuck her hand out the window. She fired two shots, one of them successfully busting the wind shield of the Mustang. It swerved, narrowly missing an expensive cream-colored Lexus that sped past; the driver righted the car and kept on them, nearly bumper to bumper.

Marcus jerked the wheel to the left, cutting off a man and his wife in an old Buick. "Keep on them, Ranger!"

She fired two more slugs, both hitting the hood of the Mustang. Buchanan yelled at her again, but his words were whipped away by the wind.

Once more, she fired the gun. A spray of red splattered the wind shield. This time, the Mustang jerked and ran off the road, slamming into a brick building.

Ranger ducked back inside the car and shoved the gun gingerly under her seat in horror and disgust. Her hands shook, and she gathered her knees into her chest, unable to speak.

"Did you get a look at who it was?" Marcus asked, still jumpy. He glanced over to see her shake her head, her eyes unfocused.

Marcus had seen a few people do the same thing after their first kill, including himself. It had taken him days and a couple of bottles of whiskey to get over it, and now he thought nothing of it. Her wondered silently to himself if it wasn't better to react the way they all did the first time.

"There's a bottle of Jack in the fridge back at base," Marcus said idly. He merely received a nod in response, but he knew it would be gone before tomorrow.

Stella decided to return to consciousness at that moment for a mere minute. "Why's there glass all over my feet?"

* * *

"Would you stop digging in there with those tweezers? You're going to get it infected!"

Buchanan glared up at his boss from her position on the couch. Her arm was wrapped tightly in a sling and she laid back in her underwear and a men's t-shirt. Underneath the white shirt, her shoulder was bound tightly with bandages, as Buchanan had just recently extracted the bullet from her wound. He knew the painkillers were losing their potency because she was becoming irritable and fidgeting with every move he made.

"First of all, I sterilized the tweezers and the entry wound, so infection chances are minimal," Buchanan said patiently. He pulled a needle out of the emergency aid kid and injected a second small dose of morphine next to her leg wound. "Secondly, if I don't get the bullet out, the chances of infection and adverse side effects are exponentially increased."

She sighed, woozy from the painkillers. "Just hurry, please. It feels funny."

Ranger sat on the bed next to her, reading a gun manual that she had found. "You're all doped up. It's amazing you're awake. Seriously, what do you eat that lets you do that?"

Stella blinked slowly, becoming rather befuddled from the medicine. As horrible as he felt to say it, Buchanan thought it was sort of funny watching her struggle with the medicine.

"I told you I eat the souls of unicorns," Storm slurred softly, blinking up at the ceiling. "It feels like something's crawling around inside my leg."

There was a tiny suctioning sound and Buchanan extracted the bullet from her leg. Ranger's face tinted an ugly shade of green, and she jumped up and ran to the bathroom. Quickly, Buchanan slathered a measure of antibiotic ointment on Stella's leg and wrapped it tightly in a length of gauze, securing the bandage with a tourniquet.

Stella's head lolled to one side, her tongue running marathons over her dry bottom lip. For all of her snark and dry humor, Buchanan felt a little pity for her. She was doped up on meds, had been shot twice on her final mission, which had failed, and now she was stuck here at base until it was confirmed that they could leave, which would only happen after they popped off the other two targets. Not to mention, she was stuck in bed and couldn't actually help them do anything, other than give them some entertainment as they watched her mumble ceaselessly to herself under the influence of the painkillers.

"Hey, Buchanan," Stella drawled slowly, the customary bite in her voice completely gone. It had been replaced by a gentle Southern twang, one which Buchanan had never heard come from her mouth. "Is Bruce here? I really miss him."

"Dr. Banner's not here, Storm," Buchanan said, gently. It actually hurt his heart a little bit to watch her wrestle with the pain and medication.

"Why?"

Stella sounded hurt now, like a dehydrated man in need of water. It was pitiful to listen to her, listless from the medication, but with raw, unfiltered feelings spilling from her mouth. If the morphine hadn't been necessary, Buchanan would have never chosen to give it to her.

Typically, people were not held accountable for what they said when under heavy medication. It was known for clouding the judgment of the recipient, and allowing all the things they never would have said to slip forth uncensored. A lot of it was chalked up to word vomit, but Buchanan knew better. The only thing that heavy medication did was remove the brain-to-mouth filter everyone had.

"Buchanan?"

They were all alone in the room, he and Stella. Ranger was in the bathroom; he could hear the sounds of retching, but he knew she would be fine. Marcus was taking care of business, trying to organize another team to take care of the two remaining targets. It was just them, alone, with only the sounds of an irate, static-filled TV and Stella's voice.

"Tell Bruce that I love him."

"I certainly will, Storm."

Buchanan was glad that she didn't have a clue what was going on, because on the TV, a breaking news cast was depicting Stella's boyfriend in full Hulk formation. Big, Green, and Ugly appeared to be taking down a huge alien ship with the help of a few more familiar faces.

Fury, for some reason, placed all of his faith in the hands of heroes. Buchanan was happy to agree with him.

He sat down on the bed, next to Stella's babbling form. There were many different types of sedation, and Buchanan had seen them all. Out of the most common (happy, sleepy, emotional, angry, and chatty), he had to say that chatty was his favorite to watch (angry, not so much).

"I fucking hate my sister, man," Stella grumbled, voice thick with exhaustion. "I hope she falls off a cliff. I hope she falls off the cliff and into a bee farm. I hope she magically becomes allergic to them."

Though initially wary, Buchanan couldn't tear himself away from the intrigue he felt. It was frowned upon that he should take advantage of her loose lips while she was hurt and medicated, but his curiosity finally got the better of him. It wasn't every day that Stella Storm explained why she hated her sister.

"That's a little mean, Storm," he said, rummaging around in the emergency aid kit until he found a thermometer. He needed to check for a temperature in case she was beginning to fight off an infection.

"She deserves it," Stella said, her words coming out slurred and thick as she wrapped her lips around the glass tube that Buchanan popped into her mouth. "She probably drowns puppies for fun."

"Why do you feel that way about her?" Buchanan asked, knowing that he sounded pushy. He was, he was almost ashamed to admit, eager to know where all of her animosity came from.

"We're the same person, but she's a hell of a lot meaner than I am," Stella said, blinking fitfully. It sounded as though she was trying to fight her way back to lucidity. It didn't stop the word vomit from coming up. "I was always daddy's favorite, though."

They had taken a step away from progress and a step towards petty childhood rivalries.

"It all started when she got my Barbie Jeep stuck in the mud. Wait, no -that was someone else. Oh -oh, I know!" Stella said, wiggling her toes experimentally. "When we were in high school, I had a friend named Joe who I really had a crush on."

Buchanan had a feeling that he knew where this was going. Chandra Storm's reputation preceded her, and he didn't mean her reputation as a businesswoman.

"Well, later I found out that Joe only wanted to be my friend because he got steroids from my brother. But anyway, I came home and walked in on him and Chandra fucking like bandits. So, yeah, she lost all the respect I had for her, which wasn't a lot to begin with. There are also the years of her cheating off of my tests and eating the last Popsicle, but that's not really a lot compared to everything she's done in the past few years.

Stella took a pause for breath and to blink languidly at the ceiling again, which encompassed most of the range of what she could accomplish while medicated.

"She likes to make it look like she's taking care of me, like when she slept with my professor to get me an A in Economics in college. Then she turned around and told the administration that 'I' had done it and they took away my credit hours for that class. Oh, and when I was in police academy, she convinced them somehow to move the date of routine drug test to the day after she convinced me to smoke some marijuana with her. I got a fine for that and they suspended me for a while."

Buchanan finally had to stop her. He was getting a headache just listening to her, trying to decipher half of what she was saying.

Much to his relief, Buchanan didn't have to interject to get her to be quiet. At that moment, Marcus burst into the base, breathless. The older agent seemed giddy with excitement, though Buchanan was at a loss to see how he possibly could be.

Marcus strode over to where Buchanan and Stella sat. He flopped down in the chair next to the bed.

"We've got a team ready to take out Meyers. They're going to deploy tomorrow afternoon," Marcus said, relief evident in her voice. He turned to Buchanan. "You're going to be in charge of this."

Buchanan shook his head. "I'm not ready for that."

"Fury thinks you are," Marcus said smugly. "Granted, with this mess in New York and this mess out here, I think he might be a little addled, but I honestly think you're capable of leading this team. And I'll be there to help you every step of the way."

Somehow, that didn't comfort Buchanan quite as much as it should have.

* * *

**A/N:** Guys, I'm so sorry. I promised to get a chapter out every Saturday, but apparently I can't even do that right. It's going to be regular from now until this thing is finished, though. I've been loaded down with my classes, especially Stats and Anatomy. I also have a speech project due TOMORROW, which is absolutely ridiculous, but you know how these things go. Its really sad that I'm already looking forward to winter break after only the first week of classes.


	17. Indicted

_The past can't see you, but the future is listening. ~Terri Guillemets_

* * *

After a week of planning for the first of two recon missions, Ranger had drawn the short end of the stick when they decided whose mission would be initiated first. She drew the second slot, and now she was stuck babysitting Stella, who was becoming increasingly more agitated and restless despite her condition, for two days while Marcus and Buchanan went off on their mission. It wasn't easy keeping a hold on someone with the will and determination of a pitbull, much less making her lay in bed most of the day.

Marcus, Ranger, and Buchanan were under strict orders to not to divulge any information about the debacle in New York until Fury himself could tell her. He seemed to think that she wouldn't rip his entrails out if it came from him. What he also seemed to have forgotten was that every news station in America was running clips from various moments caught on tape, and Tony Stark was constantly giving interviews regarding what happened, since he had apparently been appointed defacto public representative of the Avengers Initiative.

Ranger had been Stella's crutch the past few times that she had attempted to stand and walk. The impact from the bullet in her leg had caused the majority of her upper thigh to turn black from the bruising and she was so sore that the first time she tried to walk was invariably a lost cause. Her shoulder was faring much better than her leg, though, and she could now lift one of the lighter rifles without a problem. The bruising stretched from her collarbone down to the top of her breastbone, but as long as nothing put pressure on the wound, she was fine.

Getting up, though, would be a problem for a good little while.

Currently, Stella was trying to hobble from her bed into the sitting room where a computer hummed idly and a television set buzzed with about as much enthusiasm. She was bored with reading, and the few minutes she could get in front of the TV would be well worth the pain it took to get there.

She flopped down on the couch while an angry ache spread across her thigh. She learned quickly enough that it would go away, but when the ache was there, it always made all of her other body parts ache, too.

Sometimes, she wished that Ibuprofen worked for heartache, too.

That was really the only way she could describe how she felt. Never had she experienced heartache, and she had been known to scorn it on more than one occasion, but going more than a week without Bruce when she had spent the past seven months with him was not helping her emotional situation. In fact, there was a nearly constant ache deep in the pit of her heart. Stella realized that she had finally become the person she did not think she could ever be: a lover.

Somewhere deep within the confines of the couch, the remote control lurked, and Stella dove into the cracks of the seat cushions with her uninjured arm to look for it. A handful of coins and dust bunnies later, she came up with a slender white remote. She pressed the button near the top and the TV flipped on.

Thankfully, the base had a much better selection of TV channels, and Stella could now watch the Travel channel without so much as a blip of static. Within the first five minutes of watching the latest episode of No Reservations (her biggest guilty pleasure), she was now convinced that the antics of Anthony Bourdain were now crucial to her swift and immediate recovery. She'd also like a glass of whiskey, but she had been advised multiple times by Buchanan that alcohol was not an appropriate chaser for antibiotics.

She watched as Bourdain tantalizingly waved a shot glass filled with some type of cherry liquor from India, and was immediately envious. There were enough painkillers and antibiotics swimming around in her system to kill a small horse, but there were few things that she wanted at that moment more than that glass of cherry liquor. Bruce was one of those things, but that was just about it.

The show switched to commercial, and Tony's Stark Enterprises commercial came on. It was the same one that she had seen a thousand times, where he explains the goal of green energy while walking around in his Iron Man suit. What she wasn't expecting was that shortly after the commercial, a decidedly different clip began to play.

Stella suddenly found herself to be rather infuriated.

She watched the rest of the clip quietly and flipped the TV off after it was finished.

"Ranger?" she called calmly. When the female agent poked her head into the room, Stella continued on. "Would you bring the phone to me, please?"

Ranger knew at that moment that something was terribly wrong. Stella almost never asked for anything nicely, but nevertheless, she brought the phone to her injured superior. There were some orders that should never be questioned.

Ranger handed her the phone and backed away slowly as Stella quickly punched in a seven-digit code. There was a moment of silence, and then Stella began to speak.

"I would really love for you to tell me why I just saw a week-old TV news clip of my angry, green boyfriend pancaking a giant alien spaceship."

Ranger turned towards the doorway to flee, but was stopped abruptly by a cutting voice.

"Hold it right there, girlie, you've got some explaining to do, too."

* * *

Bruce was still recovering from exhaustion. He had slept for thirty hours straight after New York, and was still worn completely out. Instead of being on the Helicarrier, he was now at Stark Tower, and he had an entire floor to himself. Surprisingly, there weren't many repairs that had to be made to the tower; it was mostly just the upper floors that needed repair. The lower floors, like the one that had been delegated to Bruce, remained intact for the most part.

It had taken Tony a couple of tries to convince him to stay in New York while the tower was being repaired, but he had finally agreed when Tony promised to get Stella to the tower as soon as her mission was finished. Bruce new that it was going to be a while, but he hadn't expected it to worry him like this.

He understood that she was a professional, and that being an agent meant she probably had biological anatomical enhancements, but that would never stop him from worrying, at least in secret.

Pepper, Tony's girlfriend, knocked on the door of his room. Bruce could always tell her by her knock. Whereas Tony would pound his fist against the door a few times and barge in, Pepper knocked twice, rapidly, and left it at that.

"Director Fury is on the line for you, Dr. Banner. Shall I have Jarvis patch the call through to you?" Pepper called through the door.

"Uh, sure," Bruce called, yawning. He wasn't very keen on talking to Fury, but he supposed he could humor the director.

The director's voice resonated through the small room. "How are you feeling, Dr. Banner?"

"Spectacular," Bruce said sarcastically. He hoped Fury could hear the blatant irritation in his voice.

Fury, in fact, could. "Just thought I'd let you know that your girlfriend is coming to see you."

Bruce had a feeling that this was more than a social call. "I thought she couldn't leave on a mission."

"You could call this a case of medical leave," Fury said hesitantly. Even he was still careful around Bruce, though he was fairly certain the good doctor had his better half under complete control.

"What's wrong with her?" Bruce snapped. "If you've gotten her hurt, Fury, I swear..."

"She's one of my best agents," Fury said calmly. The connection in Tony's tower was impeccable, so Bruce could hear the worry in Fury's voice. "She's fine now."

"Just tell me what happened to her," Bruce said curtly.

"Calm down, Dr. Banner," Fury said. The fact that he probably just rolled his eyes was was not lost on Bruce, even though the director was thousands of miles away. "Agent Storm is perfectly fine now."

"Well, if it's not too classified, Director," Bruce said mockingly, "both me and the other guy would really appreciate if you told me what happened to my girlfriend. If its not too much trouble."

"She suffered multiple gun wounds, but stabilized quickly due to the biological enhancements she was given," Fury said, in his matter-of-fact tone.

"You mean the powers she has that if she uses them could possibly give SHIELD the due process to terminate her?" Bruce scoffed. He pulled on a pair of khaki pants and a button-up as he talked and smoothed his hair out as best he could. There wasn't a lot he could do with the curls.

"Exactly."

Bruce sat on the egde of his bed. "I hope you're not waiting for me to congratulate you on getting her home safely or expect me to buy you a nice card, because you haven't done either of those things yet."

Fury smiled in spite of himself. "She's not in our jurisdiction anymore. She turned in her pink slip before she left on that mission. It was her final one. Any subsequent missions go unpaid and of her own free will. I believe she'll be accompanying Agent Ranger on her first solitary mission."

"Thank you for the information, Director," Bruce said. He signaled for Jarvis to terminate the connection.

"But don't forget, Dr. Banner, SHIELD still has an eye out for the Avengers, and we still have an eye out of former Agent Storm. One misstep and we will intervene."

With that, Jarvis canceled the connection. Bruce folded some of his clothes up and hid them away in one of the many drawers in his bedroom. He could, if nothing else, at least tidy up for Stella's arrival, though he knew she wouldn't care. He was just happy to see her, even if it was just for a brief while.

Someone began pounding on Bruce's door, and Tony barged in, a stack of papers in hand. A screwdriver was tucked precariously behind the billionaire's left ear and he had a dark smudge of grease on his cheek.

"Hey, can you double check my math?" Tony asked, never taking his eyes away from the top form. "I've been over it at least five times, and for some reason my reactor flow isn't connecting to the Iron Man suit's power source properly."

"Did you remember to check all the circuits?" Bruce asked, taking the bottom half of the paper stack from him. That seemed to be the most frequent problem that Tony had. He was brilliant, absolutely and completely, but like a lot of brilliant people, some of the most simple actions seemed to slip his mind.

Tony eyed him silently for a second. "Maybe."

"Come on, I'll check your math while you check the circuits," Bruce said, smiling slightly. It was good to be back in a lab, speaking a language he understood.

Tony turned around and pointed at him. "By the way, you do realize that this whole floor is meant for you and my new HR rep, right?"

Bruce blinked innocently. "Of course!"

"Then you better start acting like it. I didn't build you your own lab up here to keep you out of mine down in the basement, you know," Tony commented, giving the room a keen eye. With a very customary dramatic sweep of his t-shirt-clad arm, he waltzed out of the room and off to the lab. "It's here for those days when you need to work, but your lady requires some special attention."

Bruce rolled his eyes as they stalked down towards the elevator. "I gathered that from the special collection of DVD's."

"Psh, you don't need DVD's," Tony said, jabbing the button of the elevator quickly. "Jarvis has them all already stored in his database."

The elevator whooshed open. Bruce was fairly certain that Tony had copied the idea from Star Trek.

"And I expect you to use them."

"Please stop trying to get me laid."

"Do or do not, there is no try."

* * *

Stella hobbled out towards the car on a pair of crutches the team had found shoved way in the back of the storage closet. Ranger was waiting for her in the driver's seat, a look of dark determination on her face. Stella placed the crutch that wasn't vital to her standing erect on top of the car and gingerly swung the door open. She took the crutch and slid it into the back seat behind Ranger, carefully eased herself into the passenger seat, slipped the other crutch into the back with its pair, and shut the car door. Ranger did not attempt to help Stella into the car; she stayed with her tail firmly planted into the cushioned seat.

Stella was well aware that Ranger was angry with her. In two weeks, Ranger would embark on her mission to take care of the target she lost track of at the party, and Stella was supposed to coach her for the next few days and tag along, which she could not do if she was in New York.

Ranger clenched the sterring wheel violently. "I still don't understand why you're abandoning me."

"I'm not abandoning you, Ranger," Stella said sharply. The girl was simply not willing to comply. "I'm coming back in a week. I just want to see Dr. Banner. In any case, I should be the one angry with you."

"I was just doing what Fury told me to do," Ranger said, slamming on brakes as some maniac in a blue Sentra cut her off.

"I understand that," Stella said. "It doesn't mean I appreciate it, though."

"Orders are orders."

Stella sighed. "Look, I'm leaving for a week so that I can relax and make sure that Bruce is okay. Then, I'll be training you. And finally, I will be accompanying you on your first 'solo' mission basically to show you that me getting shot was a one-time thing. After we kick some ass, I'm going home. Besides, I'm not technically even employed by SHIELD anymore. I'm tagging along just to appease my own ego."

"Still, I wasn't ready for that last mission," Ranger huffed. "What makes you think I'm ready for this one?"

"You're not."

"See-"

"Yet."

Ranger was confused. "How are you going to train me in a week?"

"You'll find out. Just give me a week to rest and get healed up, and I promise you that I will get you ready for this mission."

Ranger pulled the car into the front lane of O'Hare International Airport. Stella extracted one of the crutches from the backseat and fumbled with her backpack until it was successfully strapped onto her back. She removed herself from the car slowly without telling Ranger goodbye and limped towards the entrance of the airport.

This flight to New York marked the first time in more than ten years that she had been on a commercial flight, which meant she had to make it through security. She hoped one of the security guards would be nice enough to remove her backpack for her.

* * *

**A/N:** If you want to yell at me for posting this so late, please go to my author page and locate my Tumblr and go to my ask box. I've been under so much stress from all the work I have that I've hardly had time to think, let alone write. College work is no easy feat. If it seems like this chapter is confusing or jumbled, I'm so so so sorry. I haven't really been in a very good emotional state these past couple of weeks. I've actually been kind of afraid to write for this story because I didn't think I could get the romantic bits right. I promise, the next chapter will have some romance and probably some naughty bits, but its really going to depend on if I can get over all of this anxiety. Please, if you're a religious person, pray for me a moment. It's been tough.


	18. Revisited

_It is hard to believe that a man is telling the truth when you know that you would lie if you were in his place. ~ Henry Louis Mencken_

* * *

Stella leaned heavily on her crutch as she waited for the car that would pick her up. Seeing as she had not informed Tony Stark that she would be staying for a week, not that she thought he cared, she had instead seen fit to contact an old friend for a ride. A very old friend, in fact.

A black Ford Taurus crept up the drive of the airport, rumbling along in complete disregard to the multitudes of traffic crowding in behind it. The windows were tinted completely black, and Stella was fairly certain that the car was armored and possibly booby-trapped. She had been on the wrong end of a shocking door once, which was nothing she ever wanted to repeat, and she was certain that all of the possible traps were exactly as painful and unpleasant, if not more so, than that particular incident had been.

The Taurus stopped effortlessly in front of her, and the black window rolled slowly down. Everything about this car screamed slow and deliberate, from the gentle cruising to the black paint job to the rolling windows. Even without the knowledge of who was in the backseat, a complete stranger would be able to tell that whoever owned this car was serious business.

A tan, wrinkled face stared out at her from the leather interior. Luminous green eyes bored into her fluid gray ones shamelessly beneath a multitude of thick, bushy gray eyebrows.

"You look like Machine Gun Kelly fucked you over," the wrinkled thing commented scathingly in a rough, rasping voice, like the scrape of dead leaves.

"He certainly didn't take me out for a romantic evening on the town," Stella said, nudging her luggage along. The driver finally got out and rushed around to help her get the suitcase into the trunk of the Taurus. He even opened the door for her and took her crutch.

The backseat was inhabited by a darkly tanned Hispanic man who appeared to be around seventy years old. It was hard to get a very good idea of his true age since his face was pulled around the eyes in a spirited attempt to defy age, but Stella knew better. She'd been friends with this man long enough to know that, like most of her 'friends,' he wasn't all he appeared to be.

"So I heard," the wrinkled thing said, "ol' Frankie's dead and gone now."

The Taurus lurched forward. It glided smoothly along and traffic seemed to move out of its way. The old man reached under his seat and pulled out a large black cigar and a lighter shaped like a skull. He lit the cigar and puffed on it so that a large yellow-green cloud of residual smoke issue forth from the unfiltered tip.

He continued on: "I also heard from an old friend that a couple of potential partners are gonna be following him to Hell."

"Who'd you hear that from? Hades himself?" Stella said, smirking playfully.

The wrinkled thing stared at her with his brilliant green eyes. "Yes."

A chill went down her spine as she remembered who she was talking to. "It's good to know he's finally getting his judgment, then."

The wrinkled thing smirked back at her finally, his dark chapped lips pulling back to reveal his yellowed pearl teeth. "So tell me about the mission. I'd love to know how Frankie met his maker."

Stella raised her eyebrow at him skeptically. "Shouldn't you know already?"

The wrinkled thing mimicked her cocked eyebrow spectacularly. "Yes, I do, but I want to hear it from your mouth."

"Well, he bit the dust no thanks to me, unfortunately," Stella replied. Her tongue was acid in her mouth. The noxious cigar the man puffed on burned her nose and throat and made her eyes water. The air tasted rancid like burning brimstone. "I was supposed to be posing as Chandra, but Frankie bought out one of our backdoor men and he tipped him off. He shot me when I walked into his office. One of my partners chased him down and disposed of him while I was bleeding to death."

Her backseat partner snaked a dark hand under the car seat and extracted a thick, leather-bound book stuffed with unpleasantly yellowed parchment pages. He rifled through them slowly, chewing a fingernail on the hand that wasn't being used to flip pages. "How is Chandra, by the way?"

"Who knows? I haven't talked to her in months," Stella sighed, leaning her head against the cool window. "You probably know more about her than I do."

"It is not my job to be concerned with the living," he said, his gnarled fingertip stopping at the top of one name. "Her time comes soon, and then I will know everything there is to know about her."

"How soon is her time?" Stella asked, but she was met with a knowing smile.

"That, I will not tell you, but it is soon."

Stella glanced at him. Though it was nothing more than a faint shadow, there was a dark cast behind the old man which appeared as a completely unlike form from its source. The fetid smoke made her blink sluggishly, as if she had dirt in her eyes, and when she blinked, the old man was gone. She was not entirely sure what sort of dark figure replaced him, but when she blinked again, the old man was back, unmoved from his stoop over the leather-bound book.

"Do not worry, my dear Stella," the old man said, his lilting, raspy voice a stark contrast to the sluggishness in Stella's mind. "I am here to help you today. The fact that you can glimpse me is merely a product of the smoke and your abilities."

She coughed and felt the gritty smoke rake along the meat of her throat. "That's good to know, then."

The car strolled along the streets of New York slowly, though it seemed as though every car that passed them was going at little more than a crawl. Stella knew that they would arrive at Stark Tower within a few minutes, though it was more than an hour drive from the airport to the tower when traffic was factored in.

Stella did not ask questions that she already knew the answer to.

The old man stubbed out his cigar, but the thick yellow smoke lingered on. It did not seem to have an effect on the driver, which was another question that went unasked, because he drove on as though no one was even in the car with him.

"Love the new car," Stella mumbled offhandedly.

The old man smirked. "When one has enterprises here, one must have a car to attend business meetings."

"I'll remember that next time I feel alive," Stella said, catching the sarcasm in the old man's voice. "Though I do wonder why you would need enterprises here when you don't concern yourself with the living."

"I am in the business of death, _mi querido_," the old man rasped gallantly. "People don't bury themselves. And it is a quality hobby."

Stella was struck by a thought that, under the influence of the smoke, made her giggle quietly to herself. "I wonder if your clients know that they are making a deal with death."

This made the old man chuckle, a grating noise that was like the shattering of glass. "It's good for tax purposes, I assure you."

The Taurus decelerated to a stop next to an enormous tower that seemed to be constructed out of little more than steel and glass. Halfway up, steel support beams could be seen trying to hold open a gaping hole in the building. Workers hung off of the side of the building, hammers and tools draping off of the belts they wore. A man was situated comfortably within the boundaries of a trolley, a can of paint in one hand and a brush in the other.

Stella whistled in amazement at the sheer height and stature of the enormous building, and smirked when she saw an enormous letter A at the top. The driver came around and opened her door for her, and extended a hand to pull her from the car. She dragged the crutch out with her and leaned heavily on it as she turned around and peered back into the backseat. With as much force as she dared to exert, she let her mind slip free from its boundaries and tentatively reached out to touch the old man's.

Stella knew that she shouldn't have, but she could never resist the temptation to examine the old man because his mind never changed. She knew that he could feel her poking around, and that he could hear a disembodied hurricane in his head, but he never so much as mentioned it. The inside of his mind was pitch black, blacker than a tar pit, and so very, very vast and empty. It held everything, and at the same time, she could find nothing within the blackness. The emptiness chilled her spine, and she retracted herself from his mind quickly.

The old man turned and gave her a blinding smile. Behind him, the dark figure loomed and turned towards Stella as well. A set of silver, hazy fangs bared themselves in a rather terrifying excuse for a smile.

"Please come visit me, Stella," the old man said. He extended a hand, which she took, and pressed something into her palm. He raised her hand to his lips quickly, and then released her so that she could take her luggage from the driver. "We have much more to discuss."

The driver slipped the pack onto Stella's back and slammed the door for her. He made sure that she was still steady, and then wound his way back around to the other side of the Taurus. The old man rolled the window up, trapping the residual smoke, and the driver sped off, pushing traffic aside as it went.

Stella opened her hand, which she had only just realized she had not been able to do until the Taurus was out of sight. Nestled in the center of her palm was a necklace. The chain was long and gunmetal silver, and the rather large chunk of black onyx in the pendant was held securely in place by a frame of the same silver. She threw the rope of silver around her neck and the pendant came to a stop just above her navel. It was not a gift she could refuse.

Stella took a deep breath. Though the New York air was still rather smoky, she was glad to be out of the car and into the fresh(er) air. The air cleared the yellow smoke from her lungs, and the muddled feeling in her head dissipated. She limped up to the front door of the tower, smiling, and waited a moment as the automatic doors slipped open.

A woman with platinum blonde hair shaped securely into tight ringlets sat at the front reception desk, filing her nails and smacking loudly on a huge wad of gum. She wore a plum hued business suit, and Stella could hear her tapping her four-inch black heels against the floor. The faint strains of some twangy pop-country music spilled out from the speakers set back into the hidden lip of the wooden desk she sat behind.

As Stella limped up to the desk, the woman yanked the desk drawer open and put her nail file back inside. She raised one perfectly arched eyebrow as her gaze meandered over the crutch Stella carried and the sling that immobilized her arm.

"Can I help you?" the woman asked rather warily. Her hand strayed to the underside of the desk. Stella broke Stage One for the second time in less than ten minutes and let her mind wander out to touch the woman's. Her head was organized like a beauty salon; a lot of pretty things out in front, busy, but with a lot of information and procedures stuffed away. Presently, the woman's finger was skimming the outside of a clear plastic box that housed a silent alarm. It showed up as a red blip inside her head, like an emergency wash after setting a perm wrong in the beauty salon.

"I'm here to see someone," Stella said, smiling in as friendly a manner as she could muster. She was used to being admitted anywhere with little or no questioning. She realized that she would have to break that habit.

The woman lifted the plastic away from the button. "Mr. Stark isn't in today-"

"Yes, he is. It's ten a.m. and he's probably still asleep," Stella said, cutting her short. "I would appreciate it greatly if you would inform him that his new head of Human Resources is at the front desk, and she's very sore and kind of pissed."

The woman pressed an intercom button next to her, her head buzzing with activity. She was still wary of Stella, but the mention of the new HR head resounded in her mind. The stranger was talking about familiar things, and she was fairly certain that she needed to call someone of a higher authority. The name of Pepper Potts came through bright and clear, and the receptionist pressed the button to call.

"Miss Potts?" the woman asked. She tapped her nails gently against the wood grain of the desk.

The intercom rang out loud and clear. "Yes, what is it?"

"We have a woman down here who claims that she's the new head of Human Resources," the receptionist said, tucking a strand of curly hair behind her ear. She snapped her gum relentlessly.

"What's her name?" the voice issued from the intercom.

Stella had never met Tony's girlfriend, but she always assumed that Pepper Potts would have a high, chirpy voice. This woman's voice was high, but it was much more business-like.

The receptionist looked at her pointedly. Stella answered, "Stella Storm."

She pressed the call button again. "Her name is Stella Storm."

There was an evil hissing sound like a microphone being jerked too quickly, and this time, a male voice answered the receptionist.

"Big, Green, and Ugly is coming down to whisk you away for a night of raucous sexual intercourse, seeing as he's been high and dry for two weeks," Tony Stark quipped blatantly. Stella could hear Pepper scolding him in the background, but the genius billionaire playboy philanthropist was clearly paying his girlfriend no mind. "So next time you decide to lose your virginity, wait until after you get back from a mission. I can't have my science partner being antsy all the time!"

Pepper's voice was getting progressively louder as she scolded Tony for "being rude and completely uncalled for." He kept talking anyway, "But you still have a shitload of paperwork to do, Storm! I'll come and take you for a tour around the tower when dear ol' Brucie is finished destroying you."

The receptionist blanched, and glanced at Stella blankly as if wondering if she was part of some elaborate prank.

Stella hobbled to the side ever so slightly. She was fairly certain that her face was turning an exquisite shade of crimson. "I'll… I'll just… go on up, then… Thanks for your time."

"Uh-huh," the woman said, pointing towards a cluster of four elevators with her fingernail file. "The elevators are open to you now."

The woman went back to smacking her gum and filing her nails, but every so often she glanced at Stella distastefully with a pinched, sour face.

Stella waited by the elevators, shifting her crutch thoroughly when her arm started to go numb from the pressure under her armpit. She bit her lip nervously, excitedly, as the small blinking light above the doorway drew closer and closer to the dot that represented the ground floor. Though she was in no hurry, the receptionist's occasional glares of disapproval were highly disconcerting, and she resolved to substitute the baking power Tony used to clean his arc reactor with itching power.

Finally, the elevator dinged and slid open. Inside the cramped little room stood Bruce Banner, though he was visibly uncomfortable being confined within the tiny space. He rushed out, relieved, and grabbed Stella then and there and pulled her into a crushing hug.

As much as Stella didn't want to pull herself from his arms, she had to twist so that the searing pain in her bandaged arm would go away and so she could wrap her unbandaged arm around him, all while still leaning on the crutch. He loosened only slightly so that she could move, but as soon as she was finished, he tightened his hold again. It was an awkward position, but neither one of them cared. They were already lost in each other.

"Welcome home," Bruce said gently, talking into her wave of sunny blonde hair. She responded by squeezing his side.

Bruce pulled back and gave her a once over. He took the pendant of her necklace in his hand and fingered the cool black stone. "What's this?"

She took his face in her hands and kissed him gently. "It was a reward from a friend."

Bruce took the crutch from her while she leaned against the wall to keep herself supported. He slid the strap of her backpack from her uninjured shoulder and swung it onto his own back. He handed her back her crutch and stood behind her as she hobbled into the elevator.

"Don't be surprised if Tony starts playing _Busty Babes from Planet Rod_ on the screen," Bruce whispered into Stella's ear. "He was showing the porn parody of Harry Potter on the way down. He even slowed the elevator down."

Sure enough, the screen flickered to life.

"_Hey, baby, are you from outer space? Because your tits are out of this world."_

* * *

_Stella sauntered into the office of Frankie Zito. It had been more than a year since she had been in this room, and the last time she had been there, Zito had done all her could to get her into bed with him. She always refused him, but surprisingly, he was never very broken up about her refusals. Stella was aware that he had been sleeping with her sister, but Chandra had done the deed as a favor to her anyway._

_Zito sat at his desk, looking incredibly handsome in a white dinner jacket and black slacks. He beamed when she entered the room, each and every one of his teeth perfectly even and white._

"_I was beginning to think you weren't going to show up," he said, bending over in his leather chair to reach for the handle of a drawer._

"_I wouldn't miss this party for the world," Stella said, her voice thrown to imitate Chandra's sultry tones._

"_I bet you wouldn't, Stella," Zito said, his grin shifting from eager to wicked._

_Zito retracted his hand from the drawer and laid a large Ruger pistol on the wooden desktop. It thumped dully as the metal hit the table._

"_It's been a long time, Stella," Zito said. "I think we need to catch up, especially since you've been dead for a year."_

_Stella eyed the gun warily. "Yeah, I guess we do."_

* * *

**A/N**: This chapter has probably been my favorite chapter to write so far, other than chapter eleven. I promised some naughty bits, but you guys are already aware of how I tend to break my promises concerning the fun stuff. I swear, I'll try to put some more good, ol' fashioned romance in the next chapter.

I'm sorry for making it seem like I've dropped off the face of the planet, but I'm still here! I appreciated every follow, fave, and review I get! It makes me feel so great to know that you guys are still enjoying my story, even though it's starting to get a bit long. In all honesty, it doesn't have many chapters left, but I'm working on a couple more Avengers-related ideas! Please, please, please keep tuned! A personal, irl friend of mine who reads my story also suggested that maybe I make Buchanan and Ranger the stars of another story, and I rather like the idea, but we'll see how it goes. :)

Also, since I'm now manning the front desk for an hour and a half as a library assistant, I have time to write between errands during the day. Productivity for this story is going to increase again! I told you guys Bruce and Stella wouldn't be abandoned! :)_  
_


	19. Cited

_Love is being stupid together. ~Paul Valery_

* * *

It was a long, slow elevator ride to one of the topmost floors, but Bruce certainly didn't mind. He held Stella tightly by her waist on the side that didn't have a sling strapped to it. He tried not to look at the sling on her arm or the crutch under her arm; it only served to make him angry, and that was certainly not something that he wanted. SHIELD was keeping everyone off of his tail, he was safe and secure and away from the public in Stark Tower, and now Stella was back with him. Anger should not have even been a factor.

Bruce tried to concentrate on the film Tony was subjecting them to inside the elevator, and that certainly wasn't much help either. He noticed that Stella was watching it intensely, a twinkle of amusement in her eyes, and he couldn't help but smile. She looked up at him and smiled back, nodding towards the screen.

"Tony certainly has a lot of time on his hands," Stella said. She leaned her crutch against the wall and put all of her weight onto her uninjured leg. "I've never seen semi-tasteful sci-fi porn before."

"Well, the Harry Potter one was certainly interesting," Bruce said. He squeezed her side and pulled her closer to him. "Not sci-fi, but still."

"I've always been a comedy woman myself," Stella said, her fist entangled in his jacket pocket. "I see enough crazy sci-fi stuff to give me a lifetime of movie plotlines."

He laughed lightly. The strains of the rough, throaty moans emanated from the speakers, and Stella flushed slightly. The pink stains on her cheeks looked lovely, and Bruce reached up to stroke her cheek. She leaned into his hand, and for a little while, he simply stroked her cheek and neck.

It was now perfectly obvious that Tony was slowing the elevator down himself, and he had turned the volume up on the TV so that the only thing Bruce could hear was the moans of the actors. Bruce rolled his eyes and kicked the side of the elevator.

"Tony! Can we speed things up a little here?" Bruce asked, glaring up at the camera. He hoped that his science partner and voluntary benefactor received the telepathic message detailing what exactly the Hulk would do to him if the elevator didn't speed up. "Anger management issues and small spaces don't mix very well."

The elevator sped up considerably, but the screen still flickered with the images of a man boning a woman so hard that Stella winced visibly when the woman's head knocked against the headboard of the bed. Both occupants of the elevator were eternally thankful when the moving metal box reached the twenty-eighth floor and came to a lurching, vertigo-inducing stop.

Stella stepped out and sighed loudly and irritably when she saw that the entire front hallway of the floor had been dimmed into lusty red lowlights. The rumbling sounds of Al Green resonated through the loudspeakers, and somehow Tony was making the walls pulsate rhythmically to the beat of "Copacabana Girl." Stella could practically hear Stark snickering from his safe house in the far unknown corners of the building, and she had the sneaking suspicion that Bruce's bedroom would look much like the outside hallway.

Bruce stepped out into the hallway, but stopped abruptly. He looked down both sides of the hall and simply shook his head. "Maybe if we ignore it, he'll stop."

"I don't think he's going to stop until someone gets laid," Stella said, repositioning her crutch.

Bruce's stare turned deadly serious. "I think it's time to call Pepper."

Abruptly, the lights flickered back to normal and the music stopped. The pulsating walls ceased to vibrate at such intensity, though it still continued to undulate gently. Tony's voice suddenly emanated from the elevator: "That was uncalled for."

Bruce leaned down and whispered in Stella's ear. "That always works."

"Duly noted," Stella whispered back. She limped off behind Bruce who, she assumed, was headed to his room where he would take her stuff. She had enough pairs of shorts and button-ups for six days, and she assumed that Tony would supply everything else needed for a week long stay.

Bruce's room was a long way away from the elevator, but he simply opened the door and tossed her backpack inside. He shut it once again and continued on to a smaller room a little farther on down the hallway. The door to this room was deep, wine-red, a stark contrast to the polished off-white walls of the hallway. With its old antique-looking doorknob, the door seemed severely out of place in the efficient modern hallway.

Bruce gently pushed the door open and turned around to face her. "I like this room a lot more than I like the bedroom. I've been sleeping in here for about three days."

He took the crutch from her and slipped it inside of the room, next to the door. Then he took her hand and led her in.

Stella stepped onto a covering of soft, thick chocolate-brown carpet. Each of the four walls of the room was painted a luscious wine-red. The room itself was snug, about the size of two large walk-in closets, and a big leather couch was nestled securely in the back corner of the room. On the wall directly opposite of the couch was a small oak table with an equally sized TV on top of it. On the right wall, a large oak bookcase took up the rest of the space, and a number of the books were threatening dangerously to fall from their perches.

Stella walked in, speechless, and sat down on the leather couch. It was pleasantly warm in the room, the kind of warmth that made her want to just read a book and take a nap. She found the TV remote on a tiny matching coffee table that sat at the arm of the couch and flipped the tube on to provide some background noise.

"This room is amazing," she said, flopping back onto the couch. A jolt of pain shot through her arm, but it faded quickly. She reminded herself to try to keep taking it easy.

"I think it's the only place in the entire building with actual carbon-copy books," Bruce said thoughtfully, picking one of the many tomes from a niche on the top shelf. "And the only erotic novels in the entire shelf have been relegated to the top right corner. Everything else is scientific textbooks and manuals and some regular fiction."

"Right now, I'll be glad to read anything," Stella replied. She sat back up, and her thigh twinged slightly. The painkillers must have been wearing off because the areas around both of the healing wounds were becoming sore. She massaged her thigh gingerly, but didn't let her face belie the discomfort she felt.

Bruce glanced up from the book and narrowed his eyes at Stella. He was well aware that she was too proud to let him see that she was in pain, but he knew when she was uncomfortable. Besides, he was a doctor; maybe not a medical doctor, but all those brains counted for something. How would he have been able to survive in India and everywhere else he had lived otherwise?

He crossed the tiny room in no more than two steps and dropped to his knees in front of her. Thick, tanned fingers found the collar of her black button-up quickly, and Bruce hesitated.

"Do you mind if I check to see how your wounds are healing?"

Stella shrugged. "You're the doctor."

Bruce unbuckled the strap on the sling and let it drop to the couch. His fingers shook ever-so-slightly as he touched her collar and began to unbutton her shirt. It took quite a bit of willpower to remind himself that he had seen her body before, but a tiny voice in his mind hinted that he may not have been getting worked up over her body. That tiny smidgen of anger deep in the back of his mind twisted his thoughts to imagine someone holding a gun on her and firing.

After an eternity in his mind, he worked the sleeve of Stella's shirt over her bandaged shoulder and tugged it from her arm without letting the appendage move. Someone had taken a soft, rather ill-fitting sports bra and cut one of the straps from it so that it wouldn't rub the wound. Whoever had been thoughtful enough to improvise this probably hadn't had many choices regarding size because Stella's sizable personal business was squashed down awkwardly.

He snapped open the tourniquet that held the bandages in place and began to unravel them. All the while, he tried to focus on his work and the sound of Stella's chatter, but every so often his line of vision slipped downward. Her nipples jutted up against the soft cloth, and it was inherently distracting; he unraveled the final stretch of bandage and took that wonderfully opportune moment to get up and clear his head.

His knees popped loudly when he stood up. The bathroom was just across the hall, and he signaled to her with a single finger as he neared the door. "I'll be back in just a minute."

The bathroom was freezing, as it always was. Bruce found gauze, cotton swabs, and antibiotic ointment in the medicine cabinet; he set it aside on the sink and fished a fresh washcloth from the space beneath the sink.

Quickly, thoroughly, he washed his hands. Then, he ran the cloth under the tap and squeezed out the excess water, then pressed it to his face for a minute. The coolness of the cloth was a welcome relief to his flushed face, and he left the bathroom perfectly collected.

Stella was enamored by the TV when he reentered the red room. No Reservations was on, and she marveled at the streets of Japan depicted on the screen with insurmountable interest.

"Okay…" Bruce said to himself as he knelt down in front Stella once again. He pressed the edge of the wound gently; no fluid leaked out past the stitches. There was smattering of dried blood around the edges of all of the plastic threads, probably from overexertion, which he rubbed away with the damp cloth. Then he took a cotton swab and the ointment and slathered the wound with it.

Bruce was amazed at how healed it was. It was obviously a product of the biological enhancements brought by her abilities, but nevertheless, the rate of healing was incredible. Though the wound was still somewhat open, it was now a shallow, rounded hole that had been pulled close by five plastic stitches. The places where the stitches entered the skin were red and raw, but that was most likely from simply pulling on them. The rest of the surrounding area was bruised from the crushing force of the bullet, but even that was fading faster than normal.

He wrapped her arm tightly in the gauze so that she wouldn't pull on the stitches as much, and she jerked away from his touch very slightly. She righted herself, and kept her face as straight as possible. She was no wimp; it was just bruises.

"Your shoulder is healing quickly, but try not to move your arm so much," Bruce chastised her gently. He noticed her flinch when he snapped the tourniquet down on the gauze. He kissed her shoulder lightly. "We'll go find you some Tylenol after I wrap your thigh."

"It doesn't hurt that bad…" Stella mumbled to herself, but she was more than happy to have anything to emolliate the pain. It wasn't that she couldn't take it, but she became highly irate under pain. She'd rather not take it out on Bruce, or anyone else for that matter.

Bruce chuckled at her. "I know how you are. You were moody last time you got a splinter."

In spite of herself, Stella smiled at him. "Yeah, yeah."

"Here, lift your arm," Bruce said. He slipped the sleeve of her shirt back over her shoulder as she pulled on the other side. He expected her to button her shirt back up as he tugged her light green shorts down, but she didn't.

The condition of her thigh was much worse than her shoulder, but even still, the wound itself was half-healed. The stitches had ripped her skin a little bit, but that was it. It was the bruising that was bad. Dark purple-black bruises extended from the front of her thigh all the way around the sides.

Bruce's fingers hovered lightly over the wound. There were no signs of infection, so he repeated the process that he progressed through with her shoulder.

He tugged Stella's shorts back up for her, though she made it as difficult for him as she could. The harder he tried to pull them up, the more she wiggled away from him, playfully, and she took great delight in barring his way with her knee pressed against his stomach. She inched further and further along the couch until he was kneeling on the leather and her back was pressed against the wall.

Stella grinned wickedly at him and grabbed Bruce's collar, leaning up until she could mesh her lips with his. Her knee was still pressed against his chest, keeping him at an infuriating distance.

With her lips against his, Bruce's heart was screaming bloody murder against his chest, slamming against his ribs like a jackhammer. Pure desire coursed through his veins, and he groaned loudly against the heat of her mouth.

It took all the strength he could muster to pull himself away.

Before Stella could protest, he moved her knee, wrapped his arms around her waist, and picked her up carefully. Her protests were weak, so he jacked her shorts up as far as they would go. He let her back down and steadied her on her feet.

He pressed another kiss to her lips. "Work first-"

Another kiss.

"Play later."

Stella pouted at him and made no move to button her shirt. "But I'm on vacation. I don't want to work."

Bruce's body ached, but both he and Stella had business to take care of. He took initiative and buttoned her shirt up as he talked. "Think of it like this: the faster you go put up with Tony and finish your work, the faster you get to come back and play. Personally, I'm going to be working quickly because I'm pretty eager to give you a real homecoming."

"If you were trying to give me an incentive to go, you failed spectacularly just then."

After snapping the straps of her sling back on, Bruce wrapped his arm around her waist and steered her towards the door. Her crutch rested against the wall less than a foot from the edge of the door, and he picked it up as he passed it.

"I promise, we'll make a night of it," Bruce said, closing the red door behind him. The walls of Stark Tower still pulsated gently, and the final strains of Al Green could be heard warbling faintly.

Stella hobbled along next to him with the aid of the metal crutch. She felt like teasing him: "You think you'll be able to stay awake that long?"

"That wasn't exactly what I meant," he said, smiling softly at her. "I have something better planned."

Stella stepped into the elevator when it sank to their level. Bruce stepped in behind her and pressed the button to go up to an even higher level. There was no sign of any porn on the screen, and there was no Al Green warbling or pulsating walls. It was simple, sweet silence.

"You don't have to have anything planned," Stella said. She took Bruce's hand and squeezed it lightly. "I'm just happy to be here."

* * *

**A/N:** I'm not going to lie, I'm proud of myself for getting this one out so quickly. I meant to have some naughty bits, but you guys know when I promise fun that it hardly ever gets to pan out that way. Maybe next chapter. ;) Anyway, I'm doing well in my classes, but the next chapter may have to be delayed until I can do better with my Stats work. I hate math, guys. That's why I'm a pre-med student instead of a mathematician. (Bet you guys thought I was doing something related to creative writing. I don't have that kind of talent, though.) Enough about me though, I'm just hoping you guys enjoyed the chapter. I do appreciate every review, fave, and follow I get, even if I don't have the time to reply back. I'm writing this for your enjoyment, not for recognition.


	20. Trivialized

_"So long as we can lose any happiness, we possess some." - Booth Tarkington_

* * *

_Zito rose to his feet, the gun waving around in his loosely clenched fingers. A small wooden cabinet on the left side of a metal filing cabinet housed a collection of aged scotch from which Zito poured himself a drink. He splashed a little of the liquor into a second glass and handed it off to Stella, who took it gingerly from his hand._

"_So what brings you to my neck of the woods?" Zito asked, returning to his position behind the large mahogany desk. "Last time you were here, we were having a rather lovely date."_

"_How'd you know it was me?"_

"_That scotch isn't going to drink itself, and believe me when I say that it cost more than that car you drove up in," Zito said as he sipped his scotch. He stared pointedly at her until she did the same._

"_Answer the question."_

"_You seem to believe that you're the only person with friends, Stel."_

_Stella eased herself down into one of the plush chairs he kept in his office. "I'd prefer if you didn't call me that."_

* * *

"I want a bigger desk."

Stella stood inside of her office, which was surprisingly enormous. Her desk in the Human Resources department in DC had been minute, but her desk on the Helicarrier was at least twice the size of the one in Stark Tower. The only problem was that her office in the Helicarrier had been primarily made up of the desk, two chairs, and a cramped pathway to the door. This office was easily the size of a small trailer, and yet the desk was tiny. Stella knew she was being materialistic, but she did like a big desk.

"Small girl, small desk," Tony Stark quipped loudly. He was maybe just a tiny bit annoyed that Pepper had forced him to act as a gracious host and show Stella to her office. The girl could hardly walk, so plodding along in front of her had done nothing to improve his mood. Besides, he had been banking on at least five or six hours before she dragged herself out of Bruce's bedroom.

Stella glared up at him. "Small foot, big head."

"Which, if you were interested, both definitely are," Tony said brightly, pushing back the sleeves of the thermal he wore under one of his many black band shirts. A single, tiny particle in the back of his mind was thankful that her leg was injured. He'd hate to be kicked by her; her legs were thick with muscle and well-toned, a highly formidable combination.

Stella positioned her crutch against the edge of the desk and limped to the other side with the chair. It was leather –obviously authentic- and was inherently delightful in the way it spun without a creak or groan of protest.

Stella grabbed a blue ink pen from a cup on the desk and began separating stacks of paper. "Our love can never be, Tony, for you are infatuated with a tall, statuesque strawberry blonde and I am uncompromisingly devoted to a rather dashing scientist. Besides, I have a rather serious, uncontrollable condition where I kick the shins of smug egotists. But I still love you, Tone."

"Duly noted," Tony replied, and began to fidget with Stella's crutch. He seemed to be in a hurry, probably to go fiddle with a wrench or some other sort of power tool, because he circumvented his usual soliloquy and got straight to the point. "Now, I absolutely hate to make you start working when you just got here, and when you're on vacation, and when your birthday is in three days-"

"There will be no talk of birthdays."

Tony eyed her and smirked in such a way as to make Stella extremely nervous. "Right… Anyway, I'm working on getting positions filled in the new R&D facility, but now you're here, and I have quite a few applications for you to get through. Of course, it's Saturday, so no one in your department is here, but as soon as Monday rolls around, you're completely free to crack the whip and beat them into submission. Savvy?"

"Savvy."

"Fantastic! You're free to go!" Tony said gleefully. He had all kinds of mischief on his mind, and for once, none of it had anything to do with sex. However, a few of his select talents came to mind, and he had a lot of planning to do.

Stella glared at him quizzically. "You just told me to get to work."

Tony opened the door to leave, absently carrying her crutch with him. "Oh, I'm sure you can find something else to do."

There was a quiet pause as Stella waited for the inappropriate comment that was sure to come.

"Like Bruce."

Stella rolled her eyes. "Oh, Tony."

Tony stepped out of the door, taking her crutch with him. The heavy door banged shut behind him, and it took a full minute for Stella to realize that he had taken her crutch with her.

"You took my crutch!" Stella yelled, but there was no answer.

Tony couldn't hear her. Tony was planning something, and the furthest thing from his mind was the crutch that he had so absently taken from its injured host.

* * *

An hour later, Stella found herself back in the small room that Bruce had taken her to. Somehow, she had limped along using the support of the wall until she came to the elevator. From there, she sat on the floor of the moving metal contraption until it reached Bruce's personal floor. It had taken ten minutes to get up from the floor, something she had not thought about when she sat down, and by then the elevator had been called to two entirely different floors near the bottom of the enormous tower.

A man in a lab coat stepped in and just barely missed stepping on her foot. He was redheaded, not just ginger but violent scarlet, and fair skinned. A clipboard was clutched in his hand, and he seemed awfully nervous. The man jumped when he saw her glaring up at him, and he mumbled an endless string of apologies.

At the next stop, an immensely tall black woman stepped in, impeccable and imposing in a clean-cut peach power suit. A buttery leather briefcase was clenched firmly in one hand. She pressed the button that would take her a few floors below Bruce's and clasped her hands together patiently.

The three stood in silence since the guy had finally stopped apologizing. The buzzer dinged when the elevator reached his floor and he got off quickly, the scent of burning chemicals trailing behind him.

The black woman peered after him, appraising him with a piercing stare. "That guy always gives me the creeps."

Stella nodded as the elevator door closed. "Yeah, he does seem a little tense."

"A little?" the woman asked, cutting her eyes towards Stella. "The guy's a bundle of nerves. We had to take out an extra insurance policy on him because he blew up part of R&D on his first day here."

Stella whistled softly. "You let him keep his job?"

The black woman nodded, her hair swishing gently. "He's brilliant. Mr. Stark wouldn't let him leave."

"Yeah, that sounds like Tony."

"I'm Tesla, by the way. Tesla Woodard," the black woman said. Tesla stuck out her hand, which Stella took and shook. "I'm a legal assistant in Human Resources."

Stella smiled at her and leaned against the side of the elevator. "That's pretty cool. I'm Stella Storm. I'm your new boss."

Tesla gaped at her, but regained her composure quickly. She clearly hadn't expected such news from the rather ragged, exhausted-looking random girl. The woman was a true professional, however, and smiled regally at her new superior.

"No shit. Are you really?" Tesla asked. She repositioned her briefcase. "I heard you were young, but I didn't think you'd be so-"

Stella smirked. "Short? Blonde? Ragged?"

"You could say that," Tesla said, smirking back. She eyed the display that said which floor the elevator was headed.

"A truthful lawyer, now that's a true rarity," Stella commented. She leaned awkwardly on her other leg. "I can feel a promotion coming on. You headed up to HR? It's kind of late in the day, and it's Saturday."

"I had some work I need to finish before Monday. Get ahead, you know?" Tesla replied.

The elevator once again dinged as it came to a halt. Stella made a mental note to remind Tony when she saw him to speed the elevator up a little bit. She was aware that she had just had an entire conversation with a subordinate in the elevator, not that she minded, but she wasn't a big fan of elevator moments. Far too cramped, and she was already slightly irritable.

Stella groaned slightly. "Love an overachiever. I'm looking forward to working with you, Miss Woodard."

Tesla stepped out and looked back over her shoulder. "You'll have to tell me on Monday while you're giving me my promotion how you got so banged up."

Stella winked at her. "Maybe I will."

The elevator doors slid shut for the final time on her trip upstairs, and as the elevator jerked to a start, a sharp ache split through her leg. Stella found herself making a promise to hit the gym so that she might be able to cut down on recovery time. It seemed like when she tried to exercise, her injuries typically healed more quickly.

She had been acting like a little bitch about her injuries, but she was going to start doing something about them.

Finally, _finally_, the infernal metal box came to a stop at Bruce's floor, and this time, she got out just when it opened. Stella limped down the hall as quickly as she could and came to a stop at the room where Bruce had taken her. The door was unlocked, so she pushed it in.

Bruce was sound asleep on the huge leather couch; a book lay open-faced on his chest. A thick blanket rested on his legs, but he had kicked it halfway off in the middle of his sleep. The TV was playing in the background, humming softly on one of the satellite radio stations.

He looked at peace when he was asleep, like the other guy was finally leaving him alone.

Stella didn't want to wake him up, not when he was already out cold. He had enough trouble getting to sleep; the least she could do would be to give him some peace.

She eased herself down onto the floor in front of him and took the remote from the side table next to him. The volume was already pretty low; it was playing quiet soft rock – the blue box at the bottom said that it was Elton John. She flipped stations until she came to the Travel Channel.

Luckily, No Reservations was on.

Stella didn't even realize that she had drifted off to sleep until she started dreaming.

There was nothing but black space in front of her, dotted faintly by stars. Behind her, a supernova drew closer as the star died, releasing its corona to consume everything in its path. There was no heat against her back; instead, a numbing cold touched her intimately, in all places that the pervasive emptiness could reach.

Light from the corona wrapped around her body, and all she could see was bright white light. The band of white nudged her along with it, not pushing or shoved, just simply tugging her along like swells an ocean of light.

Just as suddenly as it began tugging her along, it stopped. The bright band spanned out in front of her, a wave of light traveling through space to be observed by someone millions of light-years away.

Stella felt something tickling the back of her head. She turned around, floundering without gravity, and came upon something very large, very green, and…

Well, no, it wasn't. Not anymore.

Stella blinked, her eyes snapping open. She was back in the cozy little red room; her back was pressed to the leather of the couch. Sweat ran down her back, a product of the unfamiliar heat.

Whatever was tickling her head hadn't been in the dream. Instead, warm, fleshy fingers ran along her scalp, pulling smoothly through her hair. That was what had woke her up, but it felt so good that she couldn't open her mouth to say stop. Fingernails scratched along her scalp, and that in itself was enough to pull her back to sleep, but through her drowse, she realized that Bruce must be awake as well.

Stella opened her eyes wide and tilted her head back, leaning into his hand. Bruce looked down at her with sleepy eyes.

"Didn't mean to wake you up," he said softly, his eyes drooping.

Stella smiled at him. "You're awake. I must have woken you up, too."

"Maybe a little bit," he replied, grinning back at her. He kicked off the blanket and shifted so that he was on his side, and he moved as far to the back of the couch as he could. "Come up here."

Stella climbed unsteadily onto the couch. She snuggled against him, careful to angle her shoulder and her leg away.

"Go back to sleep," she said, wrapping her arm around his side.

Bruce stretched against her, his body rubbing hers in an infernally delicious way. She wanted to go back to sleep terribly, but with him so close and so sleepy and so happy-looking, it hurt her to admit that she even wanted to go back to sleep with him so close to her.

"I have a better idea," Bruce said, his lips coming in to meet her forehead.

She blinked at him. "Right now?"

This made Bruce chuckle. A light gurgling sound rose from down below as his stomach rumbled. "That's not exactly what I meant. I wanted to know if you want some supper."

Stella blushed slightly. "Sorry. Yeah, I do."

"Don't be embarrassed; you're not the only one who's eager. I promised we'd play later," Bruce said, smirking at the light blush that formed on her cheeks. He sat up and helped her into a sitting position. "I intend to keep that promise."

Bruce stood up, pulling her up with him. He wrapped his arm around her waist to keep her steady. "Think you can make it up a couple of floors to Tony's kitchen?"

As much as she liked having Bruce's arm around her, she stepped away gingerly. "I'll be fine."

Putting weight on her leg felt like jamming pins and needles into her thigh. Bruce shook his head and grabbed her waist again. Wherever she had left her crutch, it wasn't the most ideal place.

Bruce walked her towards the door. "I'm not even going to ask where you left your crutch."

"Would you believe Tony took it?"

"Maybe."

"That's good enough."

* * *

Two floors and one excruciatingly long elevator ride later, they stood in Tony's private kitchen. The entire space was filled with an air of efficiency. It was pristine, gray marble with stoves and dishwashers and refrigerators and an impressive collection of pots made by a company neither Bruce nor Stella had ever even heard of.

"Why'd we come all the way to Tony's kitchen?" Stella asked, rather in awe of the sheer enormity of the kitchen. It was bigger than the entire cafeteria of the Helicarrier.

Bruce picked up one of the pans and filled it halfway with water, setting it down on the stove closest to the small dining table. "Technically, this is Pepper's kitchen. There's no kitchen on my floor or any of Tony's. I think Pepper was trying to force us to leave the lab."

Stella sat in one of the black chairs around the small table. "Smart woman."

Bruce peeked into one of the fridges and moved down the row. For all the wealth and splendor of the kitchen, it contained maybe enough food to feed a large dog. There was absolutely nothing in the extensive pantry, but Bruce found the ingredients to make vegetable soup in one of the refrigerators. He checked all of the foodstuffs thoroughly and set them out on the counter.

"This is not…_exactly_…what I had in mind when I said I wanted to cook supper," Bruce sighed, grimacing at the minimal foodstuffs. "I wish we could just go out to eat."

"New York is definitely not the best place for either of us," Stella said, noticing the grim set of his mouth. "How about we go put in a movie, order in, and ask Mrs. Potts nicely if she minds grocery shopping tomorrow?"

Bruce was still frowning at the meager restitutes of the plan he had to cook for Stella. Finally, after about ten more seconds, he returned the foodstuffs back into the fridge and poured the heated water out of the pot on the stove.

"You like Mediterranean food, right?"

* * *

**A/N:** If you guys are wondering why I've been getting so fluffy, my heart has mended itself sufficiently to try true sentiment. If you've been reading my author's notes, you know that I've been experiencing some pain, and therefore I've been uncomfortable with writing anything really romantic. But I'm fixed now. I'm okay. Next chapter will definitely have some naughty bits in it, some sentiment, but I'm going to try to get back to the plotline at hand in the next chapter or two. I can only write so many filler chapters. I'm definitely been doing better in Stats, so there should be more frequent updates as long as my Stats grade stays up. I'm also realizing that manning the front desk at a library isn't without its issues as well, but this potential problem isn't big enough for me to go into detail about yet. More word on it in my next update, possibly. Anyway, I hope everyone enjoyed. :)


	21. Internalized

_What I don't like about office Christmas parties is looking for a job the next day. - Phyllis Diller_

* * *

Tony had been planning this since Saturday. He had never turned down the chance to throw a wild party, and Stella's birthday was no exception. He did this for employees he liked, and he supposed that he had to like her by default (even if he did secretly think she was kind of okay; anyone who could get Bruce to open up must be something else).

Getting people to come to the party wasn't the issue. As soon as he put out word of his endeavors, he knew that partygoers would flock in droves to his shindig. Money, obviously, was no object. A venue – another glaring inevitability.

No, the big issue would be figuring out how to get Stella to stay at the party – and how to get Bruce there at all.

Pepper –in all her natural brilliance- came up with the idea to not make it so wild a party. This was an idea that Tony threw in the trash from the get-go. It was not a Stark party until there was a police investigation and at least fifteen cases of alcohol poisoning. Tony couldn't just abandon his reputation.

Instead, Pepper came up with another, more acceptable solution. A small, quiet party to begin with earlier in the day, complete with maybe a few of Stella's family members (tracking them down would be fairly easy). Later, pull out all the stops.

One of the clinching guidelines of this proposal was that Tony was allowed to be as showy as he wanted, which was something that Pepper hesitated to consent to. Letting Tony do _whatever_ he wanted? That was disaster waiting to happen. If that was what made him consent, though, then Pepper was willing to do damage control. She was particularly good at that by now.

However, Pepper had to have Tony explain exactly _why_ he was so determined to throw Stella a big party. After a long stream of sarcastic dribble and many snarky quips, Pepper boiled it down to the sheer fact that Tony was simply being his usual egotist self, even if it was, perhaps, fueled by generosity.

Pepper was not so naïve to think that he was simply doing this out of the goodness of his heart. Tony loved to find occasions to throw parties. He threw one for every department head's birthday, but Stella had technically only been employed for a week. Pepper knew that was good enough for him, but there was something else. Pepper knew it was a plot to bring Bruce out of his shell. _That_ was most likely what it boiled down to.

Tony had spent a good portion of the last couple of weeks dragging Bruce around from lab to lab, all but begging him to go outside of the tower. He offered the reluctant scientist tickets to plays, which was the tamest thing Tony could think of. He'd offered to take Bruce to the biggest lab in New York, which Bruce also turned down. Hell, he'd even offered to take him to a baseball game. Though Tony may not have known any better, Bruce certainly did. He refused to leave Stark Tower unless it was absolutely unavoidable. Bruce knew his limits, and simply being in New York, especially when he was worried about Stella, was seriously, _seriously_, pushing it.

Tony may not have been able to separate Bruce from the indoors, but he could certainly bring the party to him.

Pepper held a clipboard in her expertly manicured hands. A pen cap was being ground viciously between her teeth. A small headache was forming just behind her temples. She stood next to Tony as he flipped through his database of caterers for the small family party.

"Do you think we should get an ice sculpture," Tony began, concentrating on the screen, "or is that too cliché?"

"Too cliché," Pepper answered quickly, scribbling on her notepad. "Have you told Stella or Bruce about this? How are you even going to get her family here by Monday?"

"You're right, too cliché. Maybe giant cake that shoots whipped cream," Tony said, sliding his finger along the glass screen. "Maybe a giant cake that shoots whipped cream that Bruce can jump out of naked."

"You're avoiding the questions."

"You'll yell at me if I answer them."

"I'm sensing that I'll yell at you whether you answer them or not," Pepper said, raising her eyebrow judiciously.

"Well, I was hoping to make it a surprise party," Tony said, selecting the option for the giant cake. He wisely chose not to make it hollow.

Pepper sighed. "I highly doubt that Bruce handles surprises very well."

Tony picked up the phone and dialed in the caterer's number. He pressed the phone against his ear and said quietly, hushed, to Pepper, "He's a lot better at it than you'd think."

Tony twisted around slightly and began jabbering away to the man on the other side of the phone who yelled very loud and sounded vaguely Italian. Pepper took over his place at the computer and changed the order for the big cake to the list delegated for the big party. Most of the party stuff was just thrown randomly onto one list or the other, so Pepper began to organize the stuff.

"Party's scheduled for next Friday," Tony said definitively, hanging up on the Italian caterer.

Pepper didn't look up from the computer. "She's leaving again next Saturday."

"She knows not to overdo it on the champagne, then" Tony said. He squeezed in next to Pepper so that he could glue his eyes to the computer screen. "Can you start searching for her family members?"

Pepper had already pulled up the S.H.I.E.L.D. database. "On it."

They were quiet for a moment while Pepper clicked through Stella's family tree. The deeper she went in, the fewer family members she could find that might actually come – or be able to. Her brothers were in jail and her sister was otherwise not really human. Her parents might come, but they were rather elderly.

"Maybe we should ask her who she'd want here," Pepper suggested quietly.

Tony chewed his bottom lip. "Maybe we should ask Bruce."

* * *

Stella had Bruce on his knees, and he loved it.

However, they had learned, rather quickly, that until Stella's arm and leg were fully healed, it was not in anyone's best interests to go the full mile. Not only did it cause her pain every time she had to twist her arms or her legs in a certain position, but it was starting to seem like the Other Guy was getting a little protective himself. With every uncomfortable squeak or small whine of pain she made, Bruce felt the other guy beat against his chest.

It was Sunday, and they had taken the liberty of keeping that day to themselves. In translation, they had barricaded the door to the very lovely recreational room on Bruce's floor and shut themselves in with blankets and pillows and snacks. They watched movies the entire day, each taking a turn to choose. After about the fifth movie (Pirate Radio), -which meant that they had been holed into the room for about eight hours altogether not counting potty breaks- the movies weren't getting paid much attention at all.

Bruce had, in fact, begun using this disinterest to his advantage.

"I've already seen all of these before!" Stella said, brandishing the heavy box set of Star Wars at Bruce as he pushed the disk into the appropriate slot.

Bruce crawled back over to her, as they had been sitting on a mat of pillows and blankets on the floor for most of the day. He pushed himself in between her legs and kissed her mouth gently.

"I'm so sorry," he said, quite obviously not sorry. "I guess you'll just have to pay attention to me instead."

"Bruce Banner," Stella snapped, breaking away from him. She scooted backwards on her butt until her back hit the foot of the couch. "I didn't say you could do that."

He kissed her again. "You didn't say that I couldn't, either."

Stella hooked her hand under his chin, her finger carefully, casually, placed against his pulse. She brought his face in close to hers and kissed him, licking his bottom lip slowly. "I can't tell you no."

"And yet, you do it quite often," Bruce teased.

"Not my fault," Stella said, stretching her back out against the couch. She kissed Bruce slowly, one hand stroking his cheek and the other hand tangling in his hair.

Bruce rested his hands on her sides and squeezed, pulling her up and onto his folded knees. He twisted around, stumbling slightly, and fell back against the side of the couch. Stella's legs knees slipped around his waist and she sat nearly on top of his stomach. He stretched his legs out and bent them so that she slid downward along his thighs.

With nimble fingers, she slipped the top button of his shirt out of its hole and made quick work of the rest. Her cool fingers slid along the hot flesh of his chest, leaving a trail of vicious goosebumps in her wake. His skin was soft and tight, and her fingers traced circles into the panes of his body.

"That feels nice," Bruce said, smiling rather shyly. His voice was liquid in her ears; it was quiet and gentle, appreciative –perfect.

He traced a finger down Stella's cheek, past her wicked grin, and was surprised when she took his finger into her mouth.

Her tongue traced the tip of his finger, taking tiny licks and nipping here and there with her teeth. Bruce closed his eyes, mesmerized by the sensation, by the blatant euphemism. A hot streak worked up his arm as a pool of searing warmth bloomed in his thighs, forcing him to lean his head back against the couch. Her silky pink tongue worked down his fingers, tickling him gently, and it was all he could do not to beg her, not to plead her name for more.

Bruce pulled his finger from her mouth, leaving Stella with her mouth dangling open, her pink tongue between her teeth. He slipped his hands under her top, feeling along the curves of her body, and worked her top over her head. Next to go was both pairs of pants and undergarments, which were discarded as quickly and carelessly as unwanted garbage.

Bruce sat up straight and wrapped his arms around Stella's back. His thick cock jutted upright, resting against the taut skin of her stomach. Her body pressed against his; the softness of her cool breasts warmed against the blistering heat of his body. Hungry lips attacked his neck, sending a shiver down his spine. He arched against her, squeezing her tighter.

Jerking his knees upward, he pulled her roughly into position and thrust upward hard. Her name burned a tattoo on his tongue as it was ripped roughly from his mouth.

An exquisite battle of pain and desire waged war in the pit of Stella's stomach. With every thrust, with every roll of her hips, a fresh wave of pleasure washed through her. With every thrust, a twinge of pain shot through her leg, but she ignored it. The world had come down to simply her and Bruce and the meshing and melding of their bodies together.

Her climax broke over her like a hurricane, washing her far away from where she could be found. Vaguely, somewhere, she could hear a soft, final groan from Bruce, and then all was silent as she fell back down into consciousness.

Bruce's slick body stayed pressed against hers. His lips meshed against hers in a gentle kiss and he tangled his fingers in her hair, unwilling to let her move away from him.

A voice broke over the intercom: "Well, if you two are quite finished, Dr. Banner, I'd like to see you in my office. You can come naked. Or not. Miss Storm is required to, though, if she tags along."

Stella sighed loudly just as Bruce rolled his eyes. She mumbled quietly, "Maybe if we stay quiet, he'll go away."

Tony's voice crackled audibly. "Not likely. I know you're in there. I caught the tail end of your happy journey."

Bruce swung Stella's leg over his head, and he crawled out from his hunched position. He kissed her once more, lingering over her lips.

"I'll be back shortly," Bruce said, picking up his pants.

"That's right, loverboy, work comes first," Tony said impatiently, though there was an obvious bite of self-satisfaction.

Stella stood up, glad that her leg was stronger than it had been. "Don't make me come down there, Tony. I'll rip the beard off of your face and send it to you for Christmas."

* * *

"_I used to call you that all the time," Zito reminded her. "Or have you forgotten? You liked it back then."_

_Stella crossed her legs. They stuck to the leather chair and left an ugly red weal on the inside of her pale calf. "In case _you've_ forgotten, I was lying about nearly everything."_

_Zito took another long draught of scotch. "Then what were you telling the truth about?"_

"_I told you my real name…"_

_The glass clinked as it hit the wooden table. Zito looked her dead in the eye, even though his were starting to grow unfocused from the liquor. _

"_We're you lying when you said that you loved me?"_

_Stella bit her lip, chewing nervously. "Not the entire time."_

* * *

Nick Fury reclined in his beach chair, the hot Maui sun blistering his face. An ice cold beer rested close to his right hand, close enough to feel the chill coming out from the frosted glass. He was in a more secluded part of the beach, a place to watch and observe the other beachgoers without taking part of civilization himself.

He had been in Maui for about a week; he had left the day after Agent Coulson's funeral, and it had been about that long since he had been buried. Or rather, Fury had been in Maui since Coulson's memorial service. His body had been sent to his remaining family.

Fury's phone had been turned off the entire week, and he had not taken a single call from work or friends or family. He was off on his own mission: relaxation. He'd played a lot of internet checkers that week.

On the off chance that perhaps civilization was ending somewhere else on the planet, Fury decided to turn his phone back on –but only for a minute. There couldn't possibly have been anything _that_ pressing to attend to.

Fury remember his job, though, and instantly regretted turning his phone on.

He couldn't turn it off now, though. His curiosity was getting the best of him, and he had to check his messages. But _only_ to know that everything was going well.

Like usual, it wasn't.

His message counter went through the roof, and the texts included everything from the daily lunch menu to an outbreak of zombie koalas in Australia.

**Meatloaf for lunch, Director.**

**Agent Hill has the flu, sir. We've put her in quarantine.**

**No one can find the remote control for the hangar bay, sir. Did you leave it on your key ring, by chance?**

**We can't find Agent Barton's special bow. He's really scary when he's angry.**

**Thor said that Loki's gotten free and he's back on Earth. What do we do now?**

**Loki just knocked down a skyscraper in Abu Dhabi. Just a thought, but maybe you need to come back, sir.**

**Can I ask the cafeteria to make something other than meatloaf? This is the fourth time this week.**

And then the big one - the text that made Fury down his beer quickly and get up from his comfortable beach chair.

**Heard Stark is throwing a party. Shall I alert the authorities or tip off a SWAT team?**

Fury thought to himself as he pulled his shirt on, "Not again…"

* * *

**A/N**: My sincerest apologies for my lateness! I've had some people ask me if I was dead! Really, I'm so sorry! I've been right in the middle of school work and homecoming and superlatives and it has simply been a huge mess! But I'm back, I'm here, and I've already started on the next chapter! Not only that, but my lovely partners in crime and I have started collaborating on a Pokemon story! It will be posted on Tumblr under the blog URL **fourstupidtrainers**! Should be good fun, if you're a fan of Pokemon. :) Thank you guys so much for being patient, and I hope I didn't disappoint anyone! :)


	22. Coerced

_Life didn't promise to be wonderful. - Teddy Pendergrass_

* * *

"_What does that even mean, Stel?" Zito asked, his nostrils flared in anger._

_Stella chewed her lip viciously, a habit that she'd gotten rid of until now. Perhaps being in a room from the past, under the influence of such forgotten ventures, had brought the old habit back. It was merely remnant of some sad nostalgia. _

"_You had your moments," Stella replied, her hand slipping down to rest at the apex of the knee-high slit of her crossed legs. "You had these moments where you were sweet and generous and not a disgusting excuse for a human being."_

"_You could have stayed with me," Zito snapped, "instead of screwing me over like you did."_

"_Screwing you over?" Stella retorted quickly. "You cheated on me _the whole time_, Frankie! You poked around in anything that moved!"_

"_You were spying on me," Zito said flatly. He poured himself another round of scotch. "A total lie trumps a few smaller half-lies."_

"_This is one of those moments when I'm glad I was just a spy instead of your actual girlfriend," Stella snapped blithely. Like it or not, it stung._

"_You said you weren't lying all the time," Zito said. He raised his eyebrow. "Actually, you probably lied about that, too."_

"_You act like I genuinely cared."_

_Zito took another swallow of scotch. His eyes were becoming slightly unfocused. "Didn't you?"_

"_Sometimes."_

_His fist slammed into the desk with a mighty bang. "Stop avoiding my fucking question!"_

"_How am I avoiding the question when I just answered it?" Stella asked, easing the hem of her dress up very slowly._

* * *

"No parties. Absolutely not, Tony."

Bruce's arms were crossed and he stared at Tony with the same stubborn defiance that the billionaire was giving him. It had come down to a standoff, and Tony was accustomed to getting his way. Not even Bruce, who was a clear voice of reason, was going to stop him from throwing a party. Especially not two parties.

"I'm trying to do something nice for someone and you don't even want me to!" Tony whined loudly.

"Parties aren't exactly the best way to celebrate her birthday, Tone," Bruce said. His arms hadn't uncrossed yet. He maintained his fighting stance. "She doesn't like parties. Or her birthday, for that matter."

"She doesn't have to stay there! She just needs to show up!" Tony argued. "And I mean both of them, not just the small one."

"You said she already said no to a party!"

Tony grinned. "Technically, she told me no _birthdays_. Parties were nowhere on the incredibly short no-no list."

Bruce shook his head and flopped down in one of the leather chairs in Tony's office. Well, not exactly his office. He lived there. They sat in his front room, staring at the S.H.I.E.L.D. database, which was getting them nowhere. Bruce hadn't even looked at it, and truth be told, he didn't really know who Stella would want there anyway. Neither one of them said much about their family life.

"So you want to throw a small party? A _tame_ one?" Bruce questioned. He glanced from Tony's stubborn face and then back to the database. "And then you want to throw a wild party?"

"Think of it as a birthday surprise and a very awesome going away party all rolled into one!" Tony said, hopeful that he may have finally made some headway in convincing Bruce.

Bruce was silent for a while as he sorted through his thoughts. He took the iron bar that the computer screen rested on and swiveled it over to him. From his comfy, albeit chilly, leather chair, he clicked through Stella's family members. Why on earth S.H.I.E.L.D. needed to know the family tree of all of their employees, Bruce couldn't guess, but low and behold, the database showed everyone in Stella's family.

He clicked on her parents first, both of whom were unremarkable. Her mother was a nurse and her father was a police officer, which probably explained why Stella had chosen to attend police academy before she was hired by S.H.I.E.L.D.

Bruce moved on to her brothers, all five of them. The oldest, a thickly muscled he-man with the same sunny blonde hair was in prison for stealing checks from the bank he worked at. Two of his younger brothers met the same fate, as they had been charged as his accomplices. It would be another two years before the three would be released from prison.

The two youngest brothers had been in rehab multiple times, though the youngest had recently been released. He lived in Atlanta with his wife and infant twin girls, and had reportedly been clean and sober for nearly a year now.

Bruce skipped completely over Chandra. There was no point in even contemplating her.

From there, he sifted through nearly twenty other relatives who Stella may feel comfortable inviting back into her life, even for such a brief time.

When a headache started to throb in his temples, Bruce turned back to Tony.

"I honestly don't know who she would want here, Tony," Bruce said, pushing his glasses up his nose. He looked at the thumbnails displayed on the S.H.I.E.L.D. database. "I haven't met any of her family and she never mentions anyone."

Tony glared at him skeptically and tapped one of the thumbnails on the screen. "You've been dating her for how long and she hasn't mentioned anyone at all?"

"I mean…yeah," Bruce said sheepishly, but all he could really remember was that Stella and her sister didn't see eye-to-eye. "She'd want her parents here, I guess. Her youngest brother, since he's apparently out of rehab. She mentioned that she used to be pretty close to her aunts and uncles, maybe some cousins, a couple old friends."

Tony studied the thumbnail he was currently on. "See, you could have mentioned that earlier and we could have already moved onto Phase Two."

A feeling of extreme apprehensiveness crept over Bruce, causing goosebumps to form on the back of his neck. "What is Phase Two?"

Tony minimized the database and replaced it with the website of a highly affluent Italian catering website. On the screen, two cakes were displayed side-by-side. The first cake was lacy, yellow and blue, molded into three tiers, and roughly the size of a large shed. The other was neon orange and dotted with vibrant green polka-dots. It was also roughly the size of a shed.

"Which cake would you be willing to jump out of?"

* * *

Director Nick Fury was doing damage control. Like, serious damage control. Like, _literal_ damage control.

Fury stood next to a pile of rubble that had once been a skyscraper. Abu Dhabi was blistering hot, and he, in no way, wanted to be here right now. He wanted to go back to Maui and drink his beer and stare at women and eat like a regular guy. But no, he was not paid to be a regular guy. Instead, he stood next to a god. Well, two gods. One just happened to be a bit preoccupied.

Thor, in all of his glory, had pinned Loki down and had him in a half-Nelson. The dark hair god struggled mightily, but unfortunately, Thor had about forty pounds of sheer muscle over the litheness of Loki's thinner body.

Fury handed Thor a pair of handcuffs, which he snapped on quickly. A muzzle followed suit, which prompted Loki to bite Thor's hand before the blonde god could get it on him. A death glare soon followed, and Fury was thankful that Loki couldn't talk.

The dark-haired god glowered angrily at his captors. He motioned with his eyes towards the muzzle. Fury assumed that the gesture was a question of necessity.

"It's not really necessary, but my vacation just got cut short," Fury said, sending a deep glare right back. "I'm really not in the mood to hear you talk. _Especially_ since you knocked down my favorite skyscraper."

Loki glanced over to Thor.

Fury smirked. "Sending you home doesn't seem to be the best idea. I think we should keep you here, among all the humans that you hate."

Two S.H.I.E.L.D. agents appeared behind Thor, tugging a hovering metal cart behind them. They placed Loki onto the cart, twisted the chain of the cuffs around a small pole, and tugged the carrier along behind them.

Thor watched Loki leave with some apprehension. "He seems different from the last time we spoke."

Fury headed towards the small aircraft that promised him a hellishly hot ride back up to the Helicarrier. "How so?"

Thor followed along behind. "For one thing, his eyes are green again. Last time, they were blue."

Fury glanced over his shoulder. "Still holding on to the notion that he was under the influence of the Tesseract?"

Thor nodded with finality. "It proves that he was. However, it disturbs me that he continues to do these terrible things. Perhaps the Tesseract has warped his mind permanently."

Fury, however, did not hold with Thor's idea. He had seen many men do terrible, awful things under the influence of nothing but an inflated ego. In his opinion, Loki was the same as the rest of them, just a little more powerful and a lot creepier.

"Perhaps he's just being himself," Fury replied offhandedly.

"I'd prefer not to see it like that. I think-

Thor stopped as Fury's cell phone began to ring loudly. Someone had changed his ringtone to sing the chorus to "Ms. New Booty", which prompted Fury to answer his phone as quickly as possible. Silently, he cursed whoever had done it and their grandma for the rest of eternity.

Unfortunately, all he had was a text.

**Stark's party is Friday. Are you still on the fence about hiring that SWAT team?**

Fury turned around to Thor, who raised his eyebrow. Clearly the god was rather amused by the ringtone that some ungodly soul had chosen.

"How do you feel about crashing a party?"

* * *

Chandra was pissed. Exorbitantly aggravated, extremely annoyed, and above all, absolutely, undeniably pissed.

Tony Stark was throwing a party that _she_ wasn't invited to.

And it was for her twin sister.

And she _wasn't invited._

Chandra glared down at the text one of her many associates had been kind enough to send her.

"We'll see about that."

* * *

Stella was finally out and about in New York. Pepper, who had so far been a gracious, understanding, and wonderfully sarcastic soul, had insisted that they become better acquainted. She was an incredible businesswoman and presented Stella with a long, well-thought-out list of facts as to why they should be out and about. At the top of that list, Pepper had taped Tony's platinum debit card.

It was a difficult case to refute.

Somewhere farther down on the list, written in tiny letters and sealed in by parentheses, Pepper had included the fact that, since they were the respective others of the men who Pepper had coined the Science Boyfriends, they should become friends themselves. Stella had seen no reason not to.

It would be nice to have a friend that probably wasn't a spy, double agent, serial killer, drug runner, or gangster.

Pepper had even let Stella pick out the car she wanted to drive (although Pepper ended up being the one doing the driving due to Stella's uncharacteristic case of extreme road rage and injured leg). It was a mark of a wonderful blooming friendship.

Pepper maneuvered expertly through the New York streets in the horrendously ugly, bright pink, zebra print Camaro. She hadn't even said anything when Stella picked up the keys to the eyesore.

Stella was extremely grateful that Pepper had taken the choice of car gracefully. In reality, Stella was just glad to finally be able to drive a car that wasn't headed to some awful destination. In her mind, she had harbored this terrible, embarrassing dream of driving a pink car – something that S.H.I.E.L.D. was resolutely opposed to letting her do. They said it was too obvious (Stella disagreed; who would ever think that a double agent would drive such a noticeable car?). Stella was not a fan of zebra stripes (or Chevy cars), but it was pink, and right then, that was good enough for her.

The car came to a parking lot that was situated behind a long strip of stores. Pepper parked quickly and impossibly straight, something that even Stella –with all of her agent-like skills- had trouble doing on the best of days. There was seemingly no end to this woman's skills.

"You know," Stella said, slamming the car door shut, "if I had been shopping in the past seven years, I might be opposed to this."

Pepper rolled her eyes. "It's a birthday present. Don't feel guilty."

Stella shifted her crutch so she could hold open the door of the nearest store so that Pepper could walk in ahead of her. "Please don't use a reference to birthdays. It's a curse."

Pepper held up a top that looked a whole hell of a lot better than the mint-green button-up that Stella was wearing. "So I'm guessing that you haven't had a lot of awesome birthdays?"

Stella shook her head at the top –she didn't look good in pink at all. "I've had plenty of awesome birthdays, it's just that more of them haven't worked out. The first birthday I remember included my oldest brother getting arrested and dragged to juvenile hall."

Pepper pulled down a pair of glittering gold, high-waist shorts. "That's definitely not good."

"I was five years old. That left a lot of room for more," Stella replied. She took the shorts and draped them over her arm so that she could try them on later. "I'm not going to bore you with any more of them, though. That's a waste of time and breath, especially when we're supposed to be having fun."

Pepper shrugged, picking up another top. It was a button-down, much to Stella's delight. "Hey, girlfriends complain all the time to each other. It's what we're here for. Well, that and shopping."

"And telling each other when our asses look huge."

"And for drinking."

Stella smirked, "And basically for doing all the things a boyfriend won't do."

"Or shouldn't do," Pepper said, grinning smugly.

Stella laughed. "I'd probably have a fit if Bruce _ever_ came in a store like this with me. I'd laugh so hard, the management would kick us out."

"Tony would come in here for dressing room sex and that's about it," Pepper said, her face completely straight. At the sound Stella's hysterical laughter, she giggled. "Which, honestly, I'm not opposed to that. It would be better than listening to him complaining about the fact that he's in here."

"Bruce would Hulk out if I even suggested this," Stella said. Her right arm was laden with clothes, so she was relying on Pepper to hand her things to try on. "He'd get freaked out over the prospect of being forced to spend the day in New York. To be fair, I'm not very good with crowds either."

"But you wouldn't turn into a nine foot tall rage monster," Pepper replied. She took the armful of clothes from Stella and headed off to the dressing room.

"No, but I blew up a city block last year," Stella reminded her. She was sure that Pepper had probably read a file on her or something, and low and behold, she was right. Pepper didn't even comment on that little tidbit of information.

"Well, that's all in the past," Pepper said. She closed the door behind Stella, who stepped into the dressing room. "Let's just concentrate on making you look gorgeous."

* * *

**A/N: ** I am so proud that I managed to get this out! I'm off all this week, so expect at least one more chapter! I'm working hard, guys. I hope I didn't disappoint! I'm also in the process of writing about a thousand other things right now, none the least is that Fable story I mentioned in the author's note of an earlier chapter. I'm also working on a House fic, which is going to have a House/Wilson pairing, for anyone who still has too many unresolved feels. :) Anyway, thanks for all the continuing support, you guys! You have no idea how much I appreciate it. This story and the support you guys have given me helped me through one of the hardest times in my life. I just wanted to remind you how grateful I am! :)


	23. Fooled

_Stress is nothing more than a socially acceptable form of mental illness. - Richard Carlson_

* * *

_Zito's gaze snapped downwards to the hem of Stella's skirt. She stopped moving, stopped breathing for just like slightest instance._

"_Don't you pull that gun out," Zito snapped. _

_His eyes were wild and feverish from the whiskey, the dark brown orbs bloodshot and ugly. His own fingers inched slowly towards the pistol that resided under the lip of his desk._

_The trigger slid into place under his finger, and he flicked the safety off._

_Stella could hear it – the faintest of clicks. The sound of turning off the safety of a gun was unmistakable. It screamed '_danger!'_ It screamed '_move!'

_She jumped up out of the chair, ripping her pistol from the holster on her leg as she moved. She trained the gun on Zito, who had snatched his own gun out from under the desk._

_The barrels of each gun were trained on the adversary, and for the first time in a long time, Stella felt vulnerable._

"_You gonna shoot me, Stel?" Zito asked, laughter in his voice. "Come on, I don't like waiting."_

_Stella's laughter was short and quiet. "You're hardly worth the cost of a bullet."_

_She pressed her hand to her face and whispered a few short, quick words._

"_I'm not?" he replied, weeping crocodile tears. "Well, you are."_

_He fired twice._

_The first shot slammed into her leg, which gave way under the enormous force of the bullet. She double over slightly and caught the other bullet –which had been meant for her stomach- in the shoulder._

_Time trickled by slowly, like the sand of an hourglass that had gotten caught behind a larger clump of sand. She sank to the floor, unable to support her weight. _

_Warmth streamed down her body, her skin prickling under the heat of her own blood. Slowly rivulets dripped down over her breast and thigh. Spots of light flashed in front of her. Her muscles screamed. Her brain screamed. Her leg and shoulder screamed. But she didn't. Not a sound would come out of her mouth._

* * *

Bruce was notably nervous. He had never met any of Stella's family, not even her sister, so he supposed that he had a pretty good reason to be nervous. Typically, things of this nature didn't bother him; he's done enough seminars and lectures before his incident that meeting people and speaking to strangers didn't faze him. However, families were much different than simply talking to strangers. He had not had to do this often, but the few times that he had 'met the family' had been seriously uncomfortable (and in one case, disastrous).

Tony had (unsuccessfully) tried to make him chill out by reminding him that this was probably one of the very, _very_ few times that he would ever come into contact with Stella's family. Being that she was still somewhat of a secret agent –since she was technically sort of an agent of their little happy group of superheroes-, contact with her family and friends was probably discouraged. Stella herself had nothing to worry about –Bruce didn't have any family left.

Bruce stood there in his suit, rather uncomfortable in the sheer _fineness_ of it. Tony had all but forced him to get it tailored, which was something that Bruce felt terribly guilty about. Not that Tony obviously could pay for it; it was hardly more than chump change. It was more along the lines of Bruce preferring for people not to go out of their way for him.

He peeled the fine suit from his body, folding it neatly on his bed. Stella hadn't seen it; in fact, she had been kept far away from his room for the past five days. For the most part, they'd been sleeping in the room with the huge TV; that room, or Stella's, seeing as her room had a huge bathroom in it instead of a bathroom across the hall.

Stella was in the playroom, completely unaware of either of her subsequent parties that night. In fact, Pepper, Tony, and Bruce had convinced her that Bruce would be gone for the day visiting some sort of government lab.

In reality, Bruce and Pepper were going to the airport.

As a matter of fact, it had been Tony's idea for Bruce to go to the airport. It was a terrible one, completely reckless and dangerous, but it had to be done. How great of an impression would Bruce make if he was the one to meet the family at the airport? So they would simply have to pray that Big, Green, and Ugly would chill out. Obviously, this was not the way Bruce thought about it, but it would have to do.

Tony came up with the plan. Of course he would, the devious bastard.

The whole week, they had told Stella that Bruce was a scheduled visitor at the radiation lab on the other side of New York. Pepper would be negotiating with the contractors who were in charge or rebuilding Stark Tower. While Bruce and Pepper headed to the airport, Tony would be distracting the birthday girl.

How would he do that?

Food.

A lot of it.

Bruce changed into a pair of khakis and a dark red button-down. Pepper would probably already be waiting for him in Tony's underground car lot. They were taking a limo, which Bruce thought was far too flashy, but there were too many people coming to take a regular vehicle (they had decided against taking two vehicles; Bruce was not the best choice of driver).

So he headed to the elevator with all of his terrible anxiety hanging overhead. His heart pumped hard and fast, straining to get his blood flowing to the appropriate places. The Other Guy wasn't being very quiet either; every time a new pang of nerves hit him, the Other Guy would beat the inside of his head twice as hard.

He took a deep breath as he stepped into the elevator. If he had taken the time to meditate, perhaps he wouldn't have been as nervous, but he hadn't even attempted. The bad thing about nerves was that it made the situation nearly impossible to meditate in anyway.

The elevator ride was long and slow, and at that point, Bruce decided that few things annoyed him more than any song by Norah Jones.

Pepper was already waiting for him in the car; the air conditioning was on full blast. She had discarded the ACDC CD that was housed in every car Tony owned. Bruce didn't know what the music was that she was playing, but he was certainly glad it wasn't Norah Jones.

* * *

Stella swung a frying pan at Tony's head. She missed his visage, but couldn't fail to take a chunk out of his enormous ego.

"This better not be food for a party!" Stella yelled, brandishing her weapon fiercely. She assumed Tony was kidding, but decided to threaten his life just to be on the safe side.

"I was kidding!" Tony yelled back, edging away from her. He was beginning to think that he might have to show up in the Iron Man suit when he revealed the actual party, nevermind what he would have to build to withstand the force of her anger at the _second _one. "Can't you take a joke?"

"No," she replied flatly. She narrowed her eyes at him and relaxed her fighting stance, but did not lower the frying pan. "Not only would it be a jerk move to get me to cook at my own party, but it would also be kind of stupid for you to throw one after I said no parties."

Tony edged away farther still. Somehow, he relaxed stance made him more wary than her fighting stance.

"You said no birthdays," he corrected, in a voice that was barely audible to dolphins, let alone humans.

"What was that?" she asked menacingly. The frying pan was elevated another six inches or so.

"Nothing," Tony said quickly. He sat down on one of the bar stools, finally relaxing when Stella relinquished her weapon into the clutches of the warming oven. "What's the big deal with birthday's anyway? Do I smell childhood anxieties? Did you not get a pony?"

Stella rolled her eyes and cracked open a few eggs. She separated the yolks from the whites and dumped the offending yellow bits into the sink.

"You don't care," Stella said, pouring the whites into the frying pan. They sizzled loudly for a moment, and then petered off into a quiet, buzzing drone. "You just want an excuse to party."

"That may be," Tony said, "but seeing as you are the jelly to a certain mutant scientist's peanut butter, I am well within my rights to be curious as to your idiosyncrasies."

"Nice choice of words there, Shakespeare," Stella said, flipping the eggs in the pan. They landed back in the pan without much splatter or fuss. "My birthday is cursed."

"Why haven't you contacted the local hoo-do man?" Tony asked, snickering quietly to himself. He earned a glare from Stella and a brandish of the now-hot frying pan.

"Go ahead and throw me a party," Stella snapped quickly. She slid the asymmetrical circle of eggs onto a plate and brought it over to the table where Tony sat. "You'll see what happens."

"What's going to happen?" Tony said, stealing a bite of the eggs off of her plate. He popped the egg whites into his mouth, wrinkling his nose in disgust at the bland taste. "Are the witch doctors going to send the swamp spirits after you?"

"Make fun of me all you want," Stella said, downing half the egg in one bite. "All I'm saying is that something shitty always happens at my birthday parties."

"Name one thing," Tony demanded, still skeptical.

Stella sighed and swallowed the other half of her egg. There was more food to be made, so she set out to bake cookies. Sweets were not generally very high on her list of favorite foods, but something told her that she would need the warm comfort of cookie dough and the gooey melted chocolate of the baking cookies very soon.

"Okay," she started, "My brother was arrested for the first time on my first birthday. He was fifteen and got charged with possession of cocaine."

Tony shrugged. He'd seen worse in his own household. "That's not _too_ bad."

"My dad had his first heart attack on my second birthday," Stella continued. She dumped a load of flour into a bowl and followed with more eggs and some milk. "And his second heart attack on my fourth birthday."

"Eh."

"I broke two of my ribs on my sixth birthday," Stella said, doling out globs of sticky, chocolaty cookie dough onto a baking sheet. "My cousin ran into me when she was riding her bike."

"Ouch," Tony said. The scent of baking cookies was making his mouth water.

"Got stung by a yellow jacket and had an allergic reaction on my ninth birthday," Stella said. She was on a roll now. "And I got bitten by a snake on my twelfth birthday."

Tony rolled his eyes. None of her scenarios sounded very traumatizing, honestly. "Alright, I get it. Bad stuff happens on your birthday."

"Then leave me along about parties and birthdays and that kind of crap, then," Stella replied.

She still had a bad feeling about the whole thing, though.

* * *

Nick Fury did not typically wear a suit. Such clothing did not become him. He felt much more at home in his uniform, or in shorts and a t-shirt, or just simply his boxers. A suit was out of the question. In fact, it was common for him to attend dressier functions in his uniform. Suits? Suits were for the rich, the civilians, and Tony Stark. Not Director Nick Fury.

Unfortunately, this was one of those rare, irritating moments when he really had no choice _but_ to wear a suit.

However, it gave him comfort that Thor was in the same predicament as he was. The god was fidgeting irritably with his pinstriped suit, which was still a little snug in the shoulders for the big man. Of course, Fury thought, the alien still looked fantastic. In a moment of almost feminine vanity, Fury found it horribly annoying that Thor looked amazing even in that ridiculous metal battle suit.

"You got the plan?" Fury asked. He fiddled with his tie, untying it and retying it over again.

"Of course," Thor assured, "but I still do not understand why I am going to a party instead of attempting to track down my brother."

"For this party," Fury said, clapping Thor on the shoulder, "we're going to need all the help we can get."

* * *

There they were. Young and old, thick and thin, ranging from pleasantly sweet to mildly terrifying. Most of them were short.

Stella's family.

Pepper rested her hand on Bruce's shoulder and steered him over towards the group of people. Before they had gotten out of the car, she had given him a quick pep talk. It hadn't helped very much, because Bruce was still caught between feeling ashamed for instantly becoming shy and feeling like he was going to throw up every time he opened his mouth.

Why was this any different than the other times he had 'met the family?' It was certainly no worse than when he had met General Ross (one of the worst mistakes of his life).

If it was no worse, then why was he so nervous? Why did he feel so…

Alone?

Perhaps that was it.

He was alone, without Stella there to guide him or give him a heads-up on the type of conduct he was supposed to partake in. Of course, it wasn't like he was going to get sloppy drunk and do kegstands (that was Tony's area of expertise). He just didn't know how to carry himself around these people, these complete strangers.

So he assumed the best and soldier on.

The first man, Stella's father, was stocky and built solidly. He wasn't so old that he seemed vulnerable, but he was getting on in years. His mustache and hair were white and illustrious, and Bruce could just barely see the bottom of a tattoo on his right forearm. It was the kind of tattoo old men had –blue and nearly unintelligible. He carried an air of authority that could only be the vestiges of an old soldier's demeanor.

Bruce walked up to him and shook his hand (that always helped with dads). Pepper followed suit and shook the old man's hand, along with Stella's mother's hand.

Stella's mother was short at well, possibly even shorter than Stella. She had a plump, sweet face, not unlike Stella's, though older. Her hair was long and white, which was also somewhat uncharacteristic for a woman her age. Most of them had short perms. Mrs. Storm's hair was long and straight as a board.

Mr. Storm gave Bruce a once over. "So you're here to pick us up."

It was a statement, not a question. Whatever his first impression of Bruce was, he was hiding it well.

Or maybe there was nothing to hide. Bruce could never tell.

"Yes, sir," Bruce replied, hoping desperately that he voice didn't sound as shaky to them as it did to himself. "I'm Dr. Bruce Banner. I'm Stella's boyfriend."

Bruce hoped fervently that adding his title in made him sound a little better than 'that guy who turns into a big green killing machine.'

"Is that so?" Mr. Storm asked, rather severely.

Then, unexpectedly, he broke into a wide smile.

"Welcome to the family, son," Mr. Storm said, clapping Bruce on the back.

Bruce was at a loss for words.

What had just transpired?

Had he been nervous for nothing all this time?

"Stop teasing the boy, Jason," Mrs. Storm said, scolding her husband. She shook her head at Bruce. "I hope he didn't freak you out too badly. He likes his little 'serious father' joke."

Bruce blinked.

What?

Pepper nudged Bruce with her elbow to break him out of his reverie. "It's a very convincing joke, Mrs. Storm."

"Oh yes," Mrs. Storm said, "He did that with all of our children. And you can just call me Maggie, sweetie. I feel so old when people called me missus."

Bruce glanced towards the car. "Well, then, um, shall we go? I'm sure you want to see Stella."

The group herded themselves over to the limo. Filing in behind Stella's parents were her brother and his wife, her aunt and uncle, two of her cousins, and a couple of friends that Stella still kept in touch with.

And now, somehow, Bruce felt a lot better.

* * *

**A/N: **Here we go, guys, another chapter. My, this story is getting lengthy. Thank you to those of you who still read this thing. You have a lot of perseverance and patience and I love you for it. School has been taking up a lot of time, especially filling out college applications, and things have just been really messy the past few weeks. This will probably be the last chapter until my Christmas holidays next week, but rest assured that you will get many, many updates during the three weeks that I'm off. I'm planning on getting this story as close to finished as possible, if not completely finished. I have it all planned out. :)


	24. Mandated

_Happiness is excitement that has found a settling down place. But there is always a little corner that keeps flapping around. - E.L. Konigsburg_

* * *

There was definitely something going on.

Tony offered to take her out to dinner.

That was weird.

Stella was pretty sure that, even with Tony's reputation as basically a slut, he had more than enough respect for Pepper – and hopefully enough respect for Bruce – to think twice before asking someone else to dinner.

It was dinner: regular, taking the unsuspecting employee to lunch, dinner. But, and Stella was ninety-eight percent sure he was just teasing, it seemed as though he was asking her to _dinner_.

He had on a shirt and tie and looked positively stunning as only Tony Stark can. Stella was fairly certain he would have looked loads better if she hadn't been slightly creeped out. But he stood resplendent in his dark, forest green button-down and black vest and shiny, expensive loafers, looking the very picture of money and excess. Hell, he even kind of looked like a dollar bill. Or a billion dollars. Whichever.

Not only did Tony look the picture of wealth and unnecessary frivolity, he expected her to as well. Even if he was just taking his department head out to lunch.

He had a dress slung over his arm. It was deep, rich burgundy in color - sheath style, just above knee-high hemline- with a light pink tie around the waist embellished with tiny bright platinum grommets. On the desk next to him sat a pair of light pink patent leather heels, high enough to quite possibly break a leg if she fell in them. A thin, dainty silver chain necklace with a pink stone set into the pendant glittered idly in the light, right next to the shoes. All of it was obviously pricey, but no one expected Tony Stark to ever be subtle.

"That's a little too flashy for a lunch date, isn't it?" Stella asked warily, staring mistrustfully at the playboy.

"Trust me, where we're going," Tony said, flashing his ever-mischievous smile, "you're going to be glad you look this good."

"I always look good," Stella sniffed, crossing her arms. She hoped he picked up the thick note of sarcasm in her voice. She hadn't quite hit the same level of conceited as Tony had.

Tony, however loudly Stella's comment may have screamed the praises of derision, still rolled his eyes. He carefully transferred the dress from his arm to her outstretched hands and motioned towards the bathroom door that took up part of the right wall of his office.

"Make it snappy, sunshine, we've got places to be," Tony said, falling back into one of the leather chairs that surrounded his desk.

Whatever her remark was, Tony tuned it out. He leaned back in the chair, crossing his legs, and stared up at his ceiling for what felt like an hour. Pepper had texted him ten minutes before, warning Tony that they were already on the elevator up. He'd had to practically force Bruce's squeeze to come up to his office and nearly had to stuff her in that dress himself. She was just as bad as Bruce was about people buying her things.

Like he couldn't afford it.

Tony assumed that being able to afford something wasn't "the point." If that was the problem, he'd like to know exactly what the point was and how he could make it.

As long as they lived with him, Bruce and Stella would just have to get over it. If he wanted them to have this stuff, then they would, simple as that, case closed. No one argued with Tony Stark.

Tony yawned just as Stella slipped out of the bathroom. As she entered the office, he felt an immense need to give himself a high-five. (Actually, he really did give himself a high-five.)

The only manner in which he could really think to describe her was weighted by how much Bruce was going to love her.

"How's this?" Stella asked, smoothing the sides of the dress down against her hips. She swiped the shoes from the top of the desk and stepped gingerly into them. Her thigh was pretty much healed by now, but once in a while, she'd feel a twinge; this was one of those times.

Tony pursed his lips just slightly. Did she even have to ask? What was it with women?

"I picked it out, so of course it's gorgeous," Tony scoffed.

"I see you've been cultivating that overwhelming sense of modesty in your spare time," Stella commented derisively. She teetered on the tower of her heels momentarily, then straightened up primly as she stepped forward. The necklace Tony had picked out glinted at her throat, overshadowed by the necklace given to her by the old man. "I was under the impression that lunch was supposed to be an informal event."

"Stop whining and be grateful," Tony snapped. He adjusted his tie quickly. "Let's go."

The elevator which ran the length of Tony's floors was much nicer than the elevators down in the workings of Stark Tower. This one was embellished with gold and red tones and paneled in expensive oak wood. As opposed to the usual warbling of R&B customarily heard in the elevators, this one pumped Motorhead at a spine-jarring level.

The elevator, as nice as it may have been, must have had a flaw in it, because it stopped at a level that was most certainly not Tony's car garage. In fact, it moved for perhaps four floors before coming to a halt.

The doors slid open, and Tony stepped out into the hallway.

The hallway was actually reminiscent of the inside of the elevator in that the motif was red and gold. Plants –actual living plants- dotted the hallway, regal on their golden pedestals. The floor was dark crimson carpet, plush and soft and thick enough for two of the five inches of Stella's heels to sink in it. It was a long, languid hallway, but it only had three doors, not counting the elevator door. Presumably, two were for separate bathrooms. That left one other door, smack in the middle of the wall opposite of the elevator door's wall.

It led to the ballroom.

Well, it wasn't really used so much as a ballroom but as a crazy bar that had so far accumulated a count of fifteen investigations against Tony and the people who supplied his parties with alcohol.

He lovingly referred to it as his social room.

"Did you move the garage?" Stella asked, tripping every so often when the carpet snagged her heels.

"Yep, it's right through that door," Tony said. He opened the door, placed his hand on the small of Stella's back, then shoved her unwilling ass right on through to the other side.

The ballroom itself wasn't carpeted. Tony had learned after his first party that the thin layer of silk carpet was basically, unfortunately, a really crappy idea. So he had it torn up and replaced by hardwood floors, which he had cleaned after every wild party or tiny social gathering. Or on Tuesdays. He liked the floor to look nice.

Instead of carpet, on top of the hardwood floors stood a group of people. It wasn't a large group, but neither was it too terribly small. It was as though a bigger presence loomed around the group, more meaningful and boisterous than even a large crowd could have been. The sharp din of excitement hummed bright and lovely, and it was always a pleasant sound to Tony to hear the noises of an excited group.

"Seven years!" exclaimed one of the women in the group. "It will be a blessing to have my baby back."

So that must be mom.

"She's thirty years old!" the man next to her exclaimed. "She's a fed! She's hardly a baby!"

Dad. Strike that – cool dad.

Tony scanned the group, most of whom were middle aged, save for two small children. These children played together, toddling around on chubby, stumpy little legs. They were twin girls, hardly more than three years old. He didn't know who's children they were, but it suddenly struck him rather hard that, despite the parentage of the children, Stella had missed this part of her life in the service of S.H.I.E.L.D.

Should those twins have been her brother's children, Stella would have missed the opportunity to her see troubled brother's redemption. She'd missed seeing the look in his eyes when he held those perfect little babies for the first time, cradling them as his wife slept off the strain of birth. She'd missed the call telling her that his wife would be giving him those babies. She'd probably even missed her brother's wedding.

Had they been the children of a friend, Stella would have missed receiving that happy call, the crying and screaming and joyfulness of being happy for her friend.

Those twins could have, in fact, been Stella's children. They could have been the product of Stella's love for someone, a love strong enough to produce two angels. They could have been the product of long months of aching feet and nausea and stretch marks and feeling like a blimp when there were truly few things lovelier than a pregnant woman. They could have been the product of the blood and pain and labor of someone else entirely, theoretically.

The catch was, and that was Tony's final thought as he tore his eyes away from the kids, that they wouldn't have been Bruce's children. It did not escape him that his thoughts may have been vaguely creepy, but he rather enjoyed seeing the love between two people as deserving of a little happiness as Bruce and Stella.

Pepper and Bruce stood on the edge of the group, surveying just as Tony was, but with thoughts far less strange as his.

His musing were generally somewhat out of character, too nostalgic for someone such as himself. He didn't want kids himself, but seeing Bruce and Stella together gave him a spark of hope for humanity. And perhaps, he retained a tiny spark of hope in himself that Bruce and Stella could see the same between him and Pepper.

As Tony strode into the room, all became quiet, and behind him, Stella tentatively took a step out. The gentle click-clack of her heels mingled with the soft tapping of Tony's loafers against the hardwood. The hollow patter of their steps quieted as well, and even the children looked up quizzically at the sudden absence of noise.

"Stella!"

The shriek came from neither Stella's parents, nor the other members of the attending family. A woman rushed forward in a whirl of fluffy green dress and flats and angular body parts. She grabbed the smaller woman in a fierce hug, to which Stella returned full force.

Their vicious huddle was reinforced by another woman, who threw her arms around both of them and would not let them go.

There were sniffles and snorts and snot galore and someone produced a box of tissue for the huddle. The two women finally backed off, dabbing lightly at their happy tears so as not to blot their mascara. The puffy faces and red eyes and tear tracts in too-thick-too-dark foundation were enough to make Tony roll his eyes, but he had the decency to do so out of the line of sight of Pepper and the women.

Tony, to his personal immense amusement, was close enough to tell that Stella was fighting off the urge to roll her eyes as well.

Stella stood on her tip-toes and slung an arm around both of the women, each of whom was still dabbing hot tears from her eyes.

"I can't believe you guys came all the way up here for me," she said, rubbing small circles into the women's backs. There was a hint of humor in her voice, as if she wanted to laugh.

The second woman, who was blonde and blue-eyed and freckled, glared at Stella with swollen, bloodshot eyes. "You are so insensitive!"

Stella pressed a hand to her mouth. Her cheeks lifted, and it was fairly obvious that she was giggling. "How am I insensitive?"

The first woman, the brunette, still had tears streaming down her face. "We haven't seen you for seven years and you walk up in here like you saw us yesterday! You act like we're not even special! You're so-

Stella punched her in the arm. "You're such a drama queen! Has it not occurred to you that maybe I'm surprised to see you, all of you? I didn't even know you were coming, Nikki!"

The blonde crossed her arms, pursing her lips spectacularly. She had abandoned the weepy princess charade in favor of, what Tony assumed, was her actual nature: scathing and judicious. The blonde tapped her toe loudly, leather shoe sole meeting hardwood floor with a loud thunk.

"Your boyfriend didn't tell you about this?" she asked, cocking her head to glare at Bruce.

Bruce looked like a deer in headlights. He shrugged sheepishly. "It's supposed to be a surprise."

"Chill out with the attitude, Jess," Stella said. She smiled wider as Jess huffed. "I'm happy to see you both."

Nikki walked away, all the way over to the spread of food that had been set out on one side of the room. One her way past, Stella heard her mumble something that sounded suspiciously like, "Better be."

Stella rolled her eyes and turned around to Tony, who had wandered away and gotten a plate of food at some point. She swiped a small doughnut hole off of the side of his plate and popped the tiny pastry into her mouth.

"So this was your idea?" she asked, chewing thoughtfully. "And you got Bruce and Pepper in on it."

"Basically."

Bruce abandoned his post next to Pepper, who was in some sort of deep conversation about coupons or something with Stella's sister-in-law. Pepper was holding one of the tiny twins, and the other had latched onto Bruce's leg at some point. The toddler's mother removed him from Bruce's pants and swung the boy up into her arms.

As he gravitated over to Stella, she twisted around so that she could stare suspiciously at him. "You're supposed to be at a lab on the other side of New York."

Despite her suspicious face, she wrapped her arms around him and squeezed tightly. "But I'm really glad you're not."

"PDA!" Tony exclaimed loudly. His mouth was packed full of half-chewed doughnut.

Everyone turned to look in their direction, but Stella didn't remove her arm from around Bruce's waist. She aimed a kick at Tony's shin, wobbling precariously on her heels.

Tony scooted out of the way. "I brought your parents all the way to New York and you haven't even said hello to them yet. Be on your way, Storm."

"Fuck you, Stark," Stella snapped.

Tony clucked his tongue and steered her and Bruce over towards the elderly couple. "And not a thank you, yet. You know, manners never go out of style."

Stella's parents beamed happily as the couple –Stella and Bruce- walked over to them. They were, of course, happy to see Stella, even happier to see her with Bruce, but most of all they were just glad they were seeing her.

Stella had not seen her parents or anyone in her family, except for Chandra, for seven years. This was not by choice.

She had attended police academy in Atlanta where she was chosen by an unnamed superior to apply for S.H.I.E.L.D. From there, she had been transferred to Washington D.C. Unfortunately, S.H.I.E.L.D. had a very strict policy regarding contact with friends and family. Agents who were recruited to do certain jobs, such as the job Stella held, were forbidden from having contact with family.

Hence the fact that she had spoken to no one in seven years.

Agents were told from day one that they had taken on a terrible job. The hours were long, the work was dangerous, and the days were often lonely. But someone had to do it.

Agents were told of the awful things that had happened to the family of agents in contact with family. The favorite was the rumor of how Coulson's second cousin three times removed had died. But no one talked about that anymore. Coulson had had the ears of a hawk.

Stella's mother, no matter how awkward it was as Stella and Bruce stood in front of them, had the good graces to wrap her daughter in a hug. The two women stood there silently, wrapped in each other's arms, and Bruce could faintly hear the sound of quiet sniffling. He wasn't sure who it was coming from, but it was far too clear of a voice to be coming from an elderly woman.

When they broke apart, Stella continued to turn her back to Bruce, and instead, she hugged her father.

Bruce was most certainly glad to see that she was happy. She had her family and loved them, which was more than he could say about his own remaining family. He was happy to partake in hers, if she would allow him, even if this may be the first time in a very long time that he would get to meet them.

When Stella finally let go of her dad, she turned around back to Bruce, but kept her head down. He tapped her chin with his index finger, prompting her to lift her head. She did so, but her swollen eyes cut to the side and she wouldn't look straight at him. Tear tracts dripped in rivulets down her cheeks, and Bruce wiped her tears away gently.

She looked so pretty.

When she walked into the room, she took his breath away. It never failed, no matter what she wore. Stella was always pretty to him.

Maggie pushed in between them, hugging Stella to her. "Don't cry, baby, we're here!"

"And so am I!"

The room got quiet again. Deathly quiet. This was the quiet, not of anticipation, but of shock.

The soft rustle of a full skirt and the light tap-tap of flats on wood echoed through the room. Someone dropped their drink, breaking a glass, breaking the silence, and prompting Tony to twist his head quick enough to give him whiplash.

Chandra skidded to a halt right in the middle of the room, sweeping her gaze across the inhabitants. Her dress was appropriate, which was enough to cause shock to anyone who knew her anyway. Her appearance was on a whole different level entirely.

"Well, don't stop on my account," Chandra said sweetly. Her gaze shifted from her parents to Stella, and then over to Bruce, who she smiled brilliantly at.

Bruce's skin crawled nastily, as if lice were crawling over his flesh.

"Sorry I'm late everyone, but my invitation seemed to have gotten lost in the mail," Chandra continued, sidling over to drape her arm around Stella's shoulders.

Stella had stopped crying and now looked like she wanted to commit murder instead. The death glare that had claimed her features was quite blatant, as everyone in the room could see. Both parents looked as though they were ready to spring into action as any sign that the bomb might explode.

They looked as though the tension was an everyday occurrence.

Stella was seeing red. She was seething. She was also very surprised that the rainclouds hadn't started to form like they used to. She hadn't been this angry in a long time, and she didn't know how to handle it.

Ah, cue the clouds.

A dark, vaguely shaped veil of darkness drifted and swirled into being, just over her head. The other inhabitants of the room stared bewildered at the thickening clouds, and the toddlers both began to sob carelessly.

"What the hell?" Jason breathed, pulling his wife back quickly.

Bruce gripped Stella's arm tightly, attempting to draw her attention away from her sister.

"C'mon Stel, don't think about it," Bruce said quietly, dipping his head down to place his lips next to her ear. "You've got this under control, babe. Don't let it get to you. Remember how you helped me. I can't get into your head, but I can help you. Just don't think about it."

Stella inhaled deeply, letting out a noise that wasn't quite a growl, but didn't sound distinctly human either. Her mind was full of fuzz, full of red fuzz, and all she could think of was breaking Tony's newly-replaced window and throwing her sister out of it. Her face, it was like looking in a mirror, and all she wanted to do was break it.

She exhaled, and the fuzz disappeared, but the red stayed. It was anger, as pure and unadulterated as new snow. Idly, in the back of her mind, she wondered if this was how Bruce felt when the Hulk took over.

The clouds were gone as soon as Stella opened her eyes.

Her entire family was staring at her as though she had just turned flips. Chandra was grinning wildly, and would give Bruce a good once-over every once in a while. Her parents looked afraid.

And Stella felt ashamed, mostly because she had let her control slip. The careful, meticulous control with which she had governed herself had cracked, and unfiltered emotions had nearly caused her to slip farther than she ever would have let herself go.

Her father pursed his lips and gave her a pitying look. "Would like to explain what just happened, Stella?"

"Not really, no."

Chandra grinned like a Cheshire cat.

Jason switched over to his serious face, the exact one that Stella used when she was expecting compliance. "Let me rephrase that, then. Stella Storm, you will explain to me what has just transpired."

That, Stella answered quickly. "The organization I worked for changed my genetics. That's what happens when something pissed me off."

"Watch your language."

"I can also read minds," Stella said quickly, unable to stop talking. One did not just simply ignore Jason Storm's serious face. "To a certain extent."

Tony took the opportune silence that followed to interject. "Maybe we should sit down for this."

* * *

Bruce massaged his temples as he watched Tony pace back and forth across his office.

"Maybe we should call off the party tonight."

Tony looked at him as if he were crazy. "Hell no. Not because of one person."

Bruce sighed, loudly and forcefully. "Stella's not gonna be in the mood for it, and her sister has to have something planned."

"Then we work this to our advantage and get Chandra out of her life for good," Tony snapped. His brain was firing formulas for a plan at that very moment. There had to be hundreds of ways to get that woman out of everyone's hair.

Bruce was following suit. There had to be hundreds of things to charge Chandra with, hundreds of ways to get her safely out of the way.

"Call S.H.I.E.L.D., Jarvis," Bruce said, suddenly.

Tony looked up at him, alarmed.

Bruce looked at him. "There's got to be a million things to charge her with, and S.H.I.E.L.D. would know every one of them, I'm sure. Let's get Fury here tonight."

"That's a great way to make your girlfriend happy," Tony said, but he repeated the order to Jarvis, who hadn't yet been calibrated to take Bruce's orders. "Let's just get the organization that hunted her down for a year back on the scene."

"I don't see you coming up with a better idea," Bruce snapped. He removed his glasses, wiping them thoroughly on his shirt.

"That's because your idea is the best one I can think of, too," Tony said, compliant for once.

"Then it's settled," Bruce said simply. "We're working with S.H.I.E.L.D. again. Let's get the family back together."

The phone rang twice. Just twice.

"What do you miscreants want?" said the rough voice that suddenly blared through the speakers.

Tony was the one to speak up. "What would we have to do to get you to help us arrest Chandra Storm?"

Fury was quick to answer. "Point her out in a crowd."

"How about coming to a party tonight? Is that a big enough crowd for you?" Bruce said, adjusting his glasses along the bridge of his nose.

"We're already on the list," Fury said. "But thanks for the official invite."

* * *

**A/N:** These chapters are about to get a lot longer. I'm tired of dragging this story on and putting in filler chapters. I'm not tired of writing for it, but I just want to pick up the pace. I'm hoping to finish this story before it gets to chapter thirty. Anyway, I hope everyone is having a good Christmas holiday, break, or whatever you celebrate around this time of year. Maybe you don't celebrate anything, but you're having a really good day. Either way, have a happy day! And Merry Christmas, to all those who celebrate it! :) (I'm going to try and have a chapter out on Christmas. I wish I could make it Christmas-themed, but alas, the time frame is nowhere near Christmas.)


	25. Mediated

_If the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail. - Abraham Maslow_

* * *

Everyone and his grandma was at Tony Stark's party, which is to say, there was a lot of people crammed into one room.

At that point, Fury was ready to go back to Maui, get mind-numbingly drunk, and make a fool out of himself in some way that the alcohol would never let him remember. Not even a hangover would be able to match the headache he had, and nothing the nurses on the Helicarrier gave him could help.

When he said he still believed in heroes, he would have liked to recruit heroes who came to meetings on time, were model citizens, or at least didn't come to work drunk. He did not mean _oh hey lets shoot all these arrows at the small things on Fury's desk_ or _let me punch you in the throat brother_ or the ever-popular _someone get behind Fury, I'll make a run for the eyepatch_.

This is why the coffee had to be decaf.

Getting all of these heroes together, plus a couple of agents, was the easy part of the mission. The hard part was getting them all to shut the fuck up so he could discuss the plan.

First of all, he explained to his captives, uh, _heroes_, that the party was no longer a surprise for Stella, nor was it an actual party. In fact, it was two assassination missions in one.

At the mention of the failed party, Tony Stark made an unhappy noise at the back of his throat, a noise that Fury ignored with professional-grade practice.

Second of all, Fury devised the main attraction, the role of which was to be played by Clint. Due to Chandra's grossly overactive sexual appetite (which was, surprisingly, a medical abnormality according to at least thirteen psychiatrists and Dr. Phil), conning her into getting a room with Clint would be exceedingly easy.

To discern which room would be most prudent to the cause, blueprints of Stark Tower were of a vital nature. Tony was unexpectedly compliant in handing over the blueprints for that particular floor (but to SHIELD's unending guile, the rest of the tower was still locked up tight) so that a room could be designated for Clint to do the deed. Fury was ninety percent sure that Tony would knock down the walls and rearrange the entire floor after the mention.

Third, he called in Agent Ranger from the field. Someone –_coughFurycough_- had a most brilliant idea to invite Ranger's target to the party and bring the little lady to New York so that she could be reunited with her mentor.

At this stage in the plan, Stella had to be informed as to the original goings-on devised by Tony and Bruce. She hadn't been very enthusiastic about the party, but neither did she seem very surprised.

Stella and Ranger had the job of luring the target –Mathis- into a room apart from the ballroom. A number of different methods had been devised, but they had all agreed on the most plausible: the threesome.

Civilians always found it hard to believe just how often the threesome tangent worked.

To Fury's vast amusement, the civilians stared in shock with their mouths hanging open. Tony had stars in his eyes, Ranger looked a little bewildered herself, and Bruce was blushing like a bandit. Stella's face was as straight as a board – she'd done this too many times.

Though, secretly, Bruce's blushing was pretty cute.

Lastly, Thor was going as the insurance man. The name spoke for itself – in the event of an accident, he would be there to take care of business. Namely, he was there to insure that, if the need arose for Stella to utilize her abilities, the entire building wouldn't explode. Thor was being awfully nice about the mission, seeing as he really didn't have to participate.

The mission, now that everything had been divulged and planned, was underway.

Tony was doing his duty as host, drinking and flitting about in his gorgeous white suit. A champagne flute rested comfortably in his hand, familiar and cool between his fingers. Clint was doing much the same, drinking and gallivanting and flirting with the partygoers. Together, they made the life of the party, and together they attracted most of the attention.

Tony had Pepper on his arm, and she was monitoring his alcohol intake for the most part. She was having a spectacular time herself, being that she was the one who planned the party.

Ranger was hanging close to the target Mathis, drawing him in with careful whispers in his ear and glasses of champagne. She was acting as the bait while Stella waited in the wings for her signal. Together, they made an intimidating pair – strategy and malicious intent rolled into one package.

Stella had strategically planned Ranger's dress out, making sure that the perfect amount of cleavage was showing and that her hemline left more than enough to the imagination, but little enough to be intriguing. Being the bait, that was Ranger's role; to look perfect, to talk smooth, to be charming. Stella was the spider, and her job was to be a force, a separate entity unto herself, the embodiment of enticing danger. Ranger represented the appearance while Stella was the appeal.

As Stella waited for Ranger's signal that she had successfully coerced Mathis into participating in the so-called threesome, she and Bruce huddled into a corner of their own. There were whispers, short and quiet and heady and hot. Neither of them had a drink in hand, but they didn't need it. Getting Bruce to come to the party had been a mission itself, and Stella was more than happy to keep him calm in the midst of all the people.

The earpiece in Stella's ear (they had forgone the special equipment for this mission) buzzed with Ranger's idle chatter with Mathis and reports of her progress.

Stella scoped the room, her eyes all but jumping in their sockets. She peeked continually over Bruce's shoulder, which was somewhat difficult, but she wished to stay out of sight as much as possible. They sat at a two-seater table, crammed close together seated in wooden chairs.

Bruce spoke quietly, barely loud enough to be discernable over the music, and sipped his water. "I guess I get to see you in action this time."

Stella kissed his cheek. "Unfortunately for both of us."

Normally, Stella wouldn't have been so public with her affections. She didn't mind it so much; she rarely ever got embarrassed. Bruce wasn't so keen on kissing in public, though, and they were in a rambunctious place already. The hype and fervor of the room around them had to be putting an awful amount of stress on him. In effect, and it was by no means on purpose, she was using him as a distraction.

Bruce's hand rested on her knee. "I don't know, it's kind of exciting to watch you do this. I guess it's the conviction. Or the professionalism. Or it may just be the dress – I'm not sure."

"It's just the hormones talking," Stella said, smirking. She took Bruce's glass and took a sip, for once glad that Tony did not discriminate expenses. She really did hate city water.

"Or because you're beautiful."

Bruce leaned in, kissing her full on the mouth. Her lips were soft, and she tasted like tangerine lip gloss. Her tongue darted out to meet his bottom lip, and for the first time that night, he was blissfully unaware of the crowd surrounding him.

His heart slammed against his chest like prison doors, and sparks fired along his nerves. The anxiety he felt in reference to the crowd was amplified by the rush of adrenaline bursting through his veins, but he forced the other guy back with every once of will he could muster. He concentrated on Stella, and her mouth, and the feel of her thigh under his hand.

She broke away from him, caressing his face gently. She winked at him. "Definitely the hormones."

Bruce responding smile was brilliant, and he leaned in to whisper in her ear – the one without the earpiece in it. "So I was thinking, maybe, if we ever get out of this, we could-

Stella jerked back, smacking Bruce in the head as Ranger squawked loudly into her earpiece. She fumed for a moment, apologizing liberally to Bruce, who smiled and shook his head.

"Would you quit flirting and get over here?" Ranger hissed. Stella could hear chatter in the background and a slight panting noise. "This guy is not playing around. I need some assistance. Why did Fury have to make this part of the plan? I don't even like guys!"

Stella huffed and stood up, leaving Bruce in his seat. "Hold him off for a minute. Are you in position?"

"No! I'm on the couch! Hurry up, please! I need you to help me get him there!"

Stella bent to kiss Bruce quickly before running off to hunt down Ranger and the target. She passed Clint on the way, who was talking with Chandra; he had her cornered against the wall, his hand pressing down on the barrier behind her head. Stella could hear the giggling as she passed, and she would have loved to stop for a moment and appreciate how sharp Clint looked in a suit, but Ranger was making too much of a fuss.

Ranger and Mathis were on the couch, and Mathis was crawling all over her as if he had tentacles and she was a meal.

Stella leaned in and wrapped her hand around Mathis's forearm. "I hope you're not trying to start the party without me."

Her tone was sweet and simpering, everything she had seen Chandra do before. She had always based her seductive performances on Chandra because Chandra had always been the one with experience. Stella had been to enough parties with her sister in high school to know that she was a master of the sexual arts, and she'd unfortunately always had to go and get her from some guy's house early in the morning before the parental units figured out Chandra hadn't been home.

So Stella rescued Ranger in such a way as to mimic how Chandra had always done it. Sweet, simpering, and wholly, obviously easy.

This was how Stella got both Ranger and Mathis into bed.

Neither Ranger nor Mathis needed any tugging, not that Ranger would, obviously. She was in on the plot. Mathis was the one who had been solely persuaded. He trailed behind her, drunk and stupid and lustful. He couldn't decide which woman to keep his eyes on, though he was deviating more towards Ranger, who was thoroughly disgusted.

Stella opened the door for them, ushering them in quickly. Ranger went in first, continuing with her role as the bait. Mathis was next, and he was completely mesmerized by Ranger stalking into the room ahead of him. Stella, of course, was last.

She shut the door behind her and made her move.

Mathis grabbed Ranger in a deep kiss, making tiny moans in the back of his throat. Behind him, Stella wound her hands up from his hips, up his back and shoulders and neck, and gently caressed his skin. Ranger threw her arms around his waist to brace him, and Stella slowly dragged her fingers through his hair.

It was over in one swift move.

The resounding crack came too quick for the drunken Mathis to realize what was happening. Ranger caught him so as not to make such a loud thump, not that anyone would probably be able to hear Mathis fall over the loud music. Stella picked up his feet, and together they carried him over to the bed.

Ranger's pursed lips and hard face didn't make such a pretty picture. "So do we just leave him here?"

"Yeah," Stella replied. "Lock the door. One of the operatives will get him later."

"That seems a little anticlimactic," Ranger mumbled, nudging the target's foot with her hand. "I would have thought we'd at least have to smuggle him out of the building."

"No, that's the corpse corps's job," Stella said, wiping her hands on the bed sheets. She had hair gel underneath her fingernails, and she knew it was going to drive her mad before the end of the night. "I hope you never have to do duty for that. I've seen some nasty ones."

Quickly, they exited, one after the other, and Stella carefully locked the door behind them.

Ranger moved off to one half of the room, doing her best to look as inconspicuous as possible. Stella did the same, but instead of heading back to Bruce, she went to find Clint to make sure his job was going smoothly.

It wasn't. Of course.

Clint's drink was slipping out of his hand, getting ever closer to the floor. He was out cold, passed out in one of the leather armchairs situated in the sitting corner. Stella caught his drink before it fell and broke, and brought the cup up to her nose.

It smelled like regular Chardonnay, but in Stella's line of work, drinks rarely ever turned out to be regular. She dipped her little finger in the liquid and tongued it carefully. She waited. She took a sip, confident that her altered genetics would lessen whatever effects the compound in the drink would have.

The taste was must stronger than normal alcohol. She waited a bit longer.

It wasn't poison. However, her eyelids drooped slightly and disorientation set in. She dropped down next to Clint, the glass finally hitting the floor and shattering. In her short stupor, she reached over and felt Clint's pulse to make sure the sedative hadn't stopped his heart. It was sluggish, but it was there. Her worry didn't dissipate completely, but it was assuaged for the most part.

Now, she had something else to worry about. How did Chandra slip a sedative into his drink, and where was she at now?

Stella took a deep, long breath. The fuzzy feeling in her head hadn't calmed down yet, but she couldn't lie around. Being a little dizzy was nothing compared to carrying on through a mission with broken ribs. Holding on to the top of the chair, she left Clint where he was and hoped that anyone who passed would assume that he'd had too much to drink.

The first place she looked was the most obvious: Tony. Chandra liked to hang around with the big dogs at the party, and in terms of wealth, Tony was by far the mastiff in a room of chihuahuas. She was nowhere around him, in fact, Pepper seemed to be doing a magnificent job of keeping Tony happy and guarded.

Thor was next. He was a force in itself, and Stella's sister had always been incredibly talented at acquainting herself with men of his caliber.

Not there either.

In some awful, rotten twist of fate, Stella's gaze passed over the area where Bruce was.

Bruce looked highly uncomfortable. Chandra, however, did not.

Chandra was awfully close to Bruce, and as Stella watched, Chandra would run her hand up his arm every other sentence or so. Bruce would jerk back, but Chandra would move closer, smiling and twisting her hair.

Stella's face flushed darkly, hot and sour and angry. Something snapped, something deep set and jealous and explosive, and that was the end.

Ranger suddenly appeared at her elbow. The woman grabbed her arm and shook it slightly. She yelled over the pounding music, which somehow seemed louder and more offensive than before, "Something's happened to Agent Barton! He's not responding!"

Stella didn't answer.

Ranger took notice of the thick flush of Stella's face and spun her around. She leaned in close, holing both of Stella's arms down by her side. "What's wrong with you? Say something, damn it, don't get all crazy on me now!"

"She thinks she can get away with this," Stella mumbled. Her voice was nearly drowned out by the music. "She's fucked."

"What are you talking about?" Ranger asked.

Stella nodded in the direction of the offending situation.

Ranger scoped the scene, straightening her back queerly. She nodded. "I'm going to get Thor and we'll get Clint out of here. Be careful."

As Ranger walked away, the whole fucking room seemed to explode.

* * *

Bruce could feel the drop in temperature as soon as it happened. He had never experienced anything but Stage One of Stella's altered genetics, and he'd hoped he'd never have to. Stella had figured out Chandra's plot, though, and Stella was about to kill her.

This time, Stella was too busy to help stop the Hulk, too.

Bruce fought it, he really did, but the other guy sensed that he was in danger. There was no stopping the spine-wrenching pain or the fiery ache that seared his nerves or the feeling of falling so deep within himself that he knew he would never come back.

He was only vaguely aware of what was happening, and he felt no pain. He was just slightly alert enough to know that the other guy was taking him away from the danger, crashing through a huge glass window and flying through the air. The crunch of concrete and glass and steel popped under his fingers, more in the way of a ghostly sensation rather than physically ripping something apart.

Breaking Stage Two elicited a strange sensation. It was like being shocked over and over, and Stella's brain felt very far away indeed. On the outside, she wasn't entirely aware of her actions, but the inside of her head was aware that she was doing them.

People were screaming and running, some were bowled over by the ever-increasing strength of the wind, and some were trampled and scrabbling for the exit.

Stella knew that she was going overboard, and she also knew that perhaps she was using too much force. She couldn't be deterred however, and with just a little tiny push, Stage Three was broken.

Every pane of glass in the room exploded outwards. Chairs and tables and food slammed against the wall, along with the remaining few people who hadn't yet made it out. Chandra was flung all the way across the ballroom, and she hit the wall bodily with a sickening thud that couldn't be heard over the hurricane gales.

Stella advanced slowly, and by this time, she had very nearly surrendered to her most basic instincts. She knew enough to advance forward, and she knew enough to know that there was no turning back. She had the contract for her own termination by SHIELD; she might as well finish the last job for them.

She picked Chandra up from the floor, undeterred by the hand that appeared on her shoulder when she stood up. Chandra's eyes snapped open, but before she could say a word, Stella twisted her sister's neck until it cracked. She let the body drop to the floor and turned around, face to face with Thor.

He clapped his hands on both of her shoulders and shook her. "You have to calm down, Agent Storm!"

His booming voice sent a rocking tremble down her spine, jarring her into true consciousness.

She blinked and the wind stopped. The rain that had started to pour stopped abruptly, and she was left in the middle of a sopping, rainy, disgusting mess.

"Stark went after Banner," Thor said. He still did not understand the concept of an inside voice.

Ranger appeared again, agitation and maybe a slight bit of concern drew across her face. "Fury contacted me. He said the Council's ordered for your immediate termination, but he's advocating to arrest you instead. They might try to force you to come back to SHIELD."

Stella shook her head. She wouldn't go back to SHIELD, no way, no how.

"Let's find Bruce first, and then we'll talk about my punishment," Stella said, biting her lip.

* * *

Stella was worried. It was almost morning, and there was still no sign of Bruce. The two of them –Ranger and Stella- had been driving around for more than three hours, following the trail of destruction the other guy had left in his wake. They drove around in addition to Tony scanning the city from the air. Thor had taken Clint back to the Helicarrier for medical assistance, and to see if he could dissuade as much of Stella's punishment as possible.

They were past the outskirts of New York before they finally made any headway. It was also nearly seven a.m.

It didn't seem as though the Hulk had injured anyone. Caused some property damage, definitely, but apparently no injuries. Now all that was left was to find Bruce and made sure that _he_ had no injuries.

It turned out that Tony was the one who found him. He'd calibrated one of the scanners in his suit to check for gamma radiation signatures, and the major hotspot ended up in the very fringes of a small suburb outside of the city.

He called them and gave them the address. Ranger was driving because of how completely drained Stella was, and she sped off in the direction of the address.

"Why don't you get some sleep? It'll take an hour to get there," Ranger said, yawning widely herself.

Stella wouldn't be able to sleep, no matter how hard she tried. The worry was overwhelming, and though she understood that the other guy would protect Bruce no matter what, there was no force on earth strong enough to stop her from worrying. She remained oddly silent, even though Ranger, upon seeing that there was no way she was going to sleep, tried to make some semblance of conversation.

As the car edged closer to the destination where Tony had located Bruce, the amount of damage increased tenfold. Old junk cars had been ripped to pieces, and even a few sheds had been torn down. The Hulk had created some sort of nest-area in the place where he had stopped, and in place of an enormous green beast, Tony and Bruce sat.

Tony's helmet was off, and Bruce was completely nude. They were just sort of sitting there quietly, not really uncomfortably, just silent.

Ranger drove up, but she stayed in the car. Stella, on the other hand, got out.

She walked over to the pair of men and sat down next to them. They said nothing, just looked around.

Bruce put an arm over her shoulders and hugged her close. He looked exhausted, beaten, as if he'd just waged a war. He was covered in dust and squinting hard because he couldn't see. Stella wished desperately that she had remembered to bring his glasses.

"So, what's next?" Tony asked them. It wasn't a question of whether they would go home or get a bite to eat. It was more along the lines of whether they would stay at Stark Tower or not.

Stella and Bruce exchanged glances.

"Let me put on some pants," Bruce replied. "Then, we'll start cleaning this mess up."

* * *

**A/N:** This, guys, is the next to last chapter. Yes, it's about to come to an end. I've loved writing for this story, and it has really helped me the past few months to deal with a lot of issues. I'm so glad you all have continued to read and stood by me and this story. But I'll save the farewells for next chapter. I just wanted to warn you all. It won't be very sad, and I plan to leave it open-ended in such a way that perhaps an epilogue will follow. No sequels, I'm not into that, but maybe an epilogue. Anyway, get ready!


	26. Ended

_I have seen the future and it is very much like the present - only longer. - Kehlog Albran_

* * *

"Dr. Doom is throwing another hissy fit! Do we really have time to worry about Storm?"

As reluctant as he was to admit, Director Fury was in no great hurry to see Agent Storm terminated. Knocked senseless a few times, but not terminated. She had been a good agent for the most part, other than running away one or twice. Storm knew so many well-connected people that it was hard to find an agent that was more efficient than she.

The Council, the head cheeses all shiny and polished on their monitors, bickered nastily back and forth. They –the Council and Fury- had been back and forth at each other for almost an hour. Normally, any agent who messed up in the degree and caliber Storm had would be fired, jailed, or killed, but of course, Storm wasn't a normal agent. She was SHIELD's experiment and responsibility, in a sense.

"She killed her sister, Director, and caused a lot of damage," the Council said, speaking collectively. "She should have been terminated after Detroit last year, but we took your advice then, and now this happened."

"If it hadn't been for your orders, she would never have had the power to create this level of destruction," Fury retaliated. Fury's idea did not often get rejected, and even fewer still were the rejections sustained. "Storm is SHIELD's responsibility, and is therefore not liable for her actions. In any case, she did her job. Both marks are dead."

Fury knew that his argument was shaky at best, but he had gotten his way more often than not on less of a case than Storm's. Besides, whether the council liked it or not, Storm was an invaluable ally, if she could even be called an ally.

The Council deliberated. "If we allow her to live, she will be solely your responsibility, Director. Any misstep will not only be on her head, it will be on yours as well."

Fury was resolute in his stance and of a sure voice. "I am willing to take that responsibility. She may be trouble, but it seems rather stupid to waste a valuable resource."

One of the Councilmen, one who dared to be different, spoke up. "Let's not be so hasty in condemning the girl. It is as the Director has said: it was our decision to entrust Storm with these abilities. In fact, Storm may prove beneficial in preventing Dr. Banner from transforming. Let us also not forget how pertinent she was in gleaning information from the agent we captured in Budapest."

The main Councilman spoke, "Any misstep, Director. Any mistake at all and it's your ass."

The monitors flickered off, but Fury was in no way dismayed by the subtle threats the Council had given. He was irreplaceable, and he was well aware of that.

Fury departed from the room in which he'd held his meeting with the council, only to be faced with his next order of business. Ranger and Storm stood silent, resolute and watchful. Storm was not visibly nervous to a normal person, but to anyone in the room, to those who had been trained to sense fear in the most iron-willed of men, it was obvious that she was anxious to hear her future.

"So, what'll it be, Director? Sodium phenobarbital, firing squad, a good old-fashioned hanging, or will you just get Ranger to push me off the deck of the Helicarrier?" Storm asked, somehow still finding humor in the face of her possible imminent demise.

Fury halted his stroll in front of her, crossing him arms. His good eye stared at her with that same powerful intensity that he used no matter the situation. "Take a vacation, Storm."

Storm was rather puzzled, as was Ranger, who had been convinced that there was no hope for her mentor.

"I thought the Council was lobbying for my termination?" Stella asked, relieved of some of the pressure on her shoulders.'

He fixed her with one of his reprimanding stares. "I would politely suggest, Storm, that you take Dr. Banner on a long vacation. I'm sure Mr. Stark will continue to hold your position as head of human resources."

Ranger stepped up to bat. "You want her to run away?"

"Yes. Run away and get out of my hair," Fury said, shooting Ranger a glace when she snickered very softly. "And don't do anything stupid. If I have to come find you, I'll terminate your ass personally."

Well, not really. Fury didn't do that anymore.

* * *

Bruce was doing what he did best – science. In fact, he was mixing up his own personal toilet cleanser. At one point in his life, he had been getting paid to do this, and had come up with some of the strongest, foulest industrial strength mixes on the market. Now he did it simply because he knew what had gone into many of the commercial toilet cleansing products, and chose to create something that didn't burn the skin off of his privates on the fumes alone.

His concentration could not be broken, not even by JARVIS's incessant calling. Tony requested his presence here, Pepper needed him there, Tony this, Tony that, too many responsibilities at once. He knew better than to push himself to comply with all of the demands at once. It was hazardous to his health, not to mention the health of everyone in the building.

The chemical fumes weren't doing much to help health-wise, but it was better than turning into a huge green rage monster.

Due to the single-minded intensity he exhibited when concentrating on a project, Bruce honestly didn't hear the door to the lab open.

Tony, who had essentially become Bruce's best friend, strode in, grumbling about the lousy job his planners were doing in choosing a color scheme for her revamped ballroom. Most people would have thought the man would have been more upset at the fact that an entire floor of his building had been destroyed, but Bruce knew better. Tony had been forced to hand over the blueprints to that floor – he saw this as an opportunity to royally screw with SHIELD.

However, Bruce also knew that Tony Stark would not have walked all the way through the top ten floors of R&D to whine about wallpaper. Maybe if it had been about the new floor plan, but not wallpaper.

Tony extracted a tiny black box from his pocket and slapped it on the table.

"I don't know where you found the time to look for this," he said solemnly, "but you're breaking my heart, Brucie. I thought we were soulmates, man. How could you do this to me?"

Bruce snatched the box away and stuffed it down deep within the confines of his pocket. "Shut up, you're not funny."

"Of course I am. I'm hysterical," Tony replied dismissively. "You better hope I'm a riot, since I'll probably be giving your best man speech."

"Actually, JARVIS was my first candidate…"

"A candidate implies that there are options," Tony reminded him. "Being that I'm me, I'd say that rules out anyone else."

"I'd hate to interrupt your self-important tirade, but depending on the outcome of today, I might not even get to use this," Bruce reminded him quietly.

Bruce was a physicist, but he often found comfort in chemistry, simply because it was so much more than theorizing and solving equations. Chemistry was about the means to an end, and one slip-up could spell disaster. Chemistry took infinitesimal, careful precision and concentration. When he was troubled, he would transgress his first love and revert to his comfort zone.

His worry and anxiety over the fate of his girlfriend seemed as good a time as any to be mixing new toilet cleansers as if his paycheck depended on it.

"About that," Tony started, dumping himself down into one of the sterile plastic chairs that dotted the room, "If I'm worrying that you might attempt –and fail- to recruit someone else as your best man, wouldn't you draw the conclusion that I might possibly know something? Or are you too caught up in your chemistry set?"

"The answer to that should be fairly obvious," Bruce observed, gesturing down at his work. "I was trying to get away from the idea of the possibility."

Tony sighed. "The Council let her go. She's on the way here in a SHIELD helicopter right now."

For the first time in the days since the party, Tony saw a spark of hope in Bruce's eyes. The scientist had been sulking for days, wandering around as though his last link with humanity had been extinguished.

But it was certainly nice to see Bruce finally smile.

"So are you gonna use that hunk of bling today," Tony asked, spinning in his plastic chair, "or are you gonna keep beating around the bush?"

"I just… I was kind of waiting for the right time to give it to her," Bruce said, shoving his hand down deep into his pocket. He rubbed the little black velvet box between his fingers, feeling the smooth slickness of the material slide past his digits.

"She's back, she's yours. What better time than now?" Tony asked. He stopped spinning and took the tools from Bruce's hands. "Normally I'm not one to push matrimony on anyone, but I get to plan the bachelor party."

* * *

They were away from everyone, in a secluded sort of indoor patio where cameras and microphones hadn't followed them. It was quiet, blissfully so, and they had brought food up onto the patio. In place of the outdoors, there were windows overlooking the city. The sounds of the city didn't drift up though, and they sat curled up in comfortable silence, eating the food that smelled better than anything in the world.

Stella picked at her food sleepily. She wasn't very hungry, and all she really wanted to do was to get to bed. She'd looked in the mirror that morning, and at that moment became completely aware of just how deep the dark circles under her eyes went.

"Fury wants us to go on vacation," Stella said seriously, pushing her half-eaten plate of food to the side.

Bruce had finished his food and was leaning back, one hand folded across his stomach and the other still fingering the tiny box in his pocket. He cracked an eye open and smiled softly.

"And by vacation, he means?"

Stella sidled over to him, curling up in the crook of his arm. "Get out of his sight for a while and don't do anything stupid."

"And in which part of the globe should we carry out the Director's orders?" Bruce said, his tone teasing. He swept his fingers through her hair and kissed her forehead.

"How do you feel about Brazil?"

"Never been," he replied.

"Perfect."

They settled down together, content and snuggled deep in the warmth of each other. Bruce's heart pounded nervously, his pulse fluttering discontentedly beneath his skin. He wanted to bring the little box out, but it simply seemed out of place in the comfort of the setting. He wasn't too much of a romantic, but the setting just didn't seem quite, well, _right_.

So he kept the box in his pocket, and decided to wait for another day.

* * *

They didn't carry a lot of stuff with them. To be fair, neither Stella nor Bruce had much stuff to take with them. Each had a small sack packed, stuffed with only what was needed (and what Tony forced them to take).

Stella had a few changes of clothes and essentials, as did Bruce. Stella left most of her clothes at Stark Tower, since Tony had made them promise to return in three months. He had given them both phones and a wallet with cash in it, along with a debit card. He said it was for emergencies.

Tony's concern would have been touching if not for the fact that Stella had the sneaking suspicion that she would be hiring people when she returned.

Bruce had gone to India without a cent to his name and the clothes on his back, and one extra change of clothes. He hadn't needed anything else, and he was reluctant to take the money that Tony gave him. So he resolved to keep the cash and budget it, but to discreetly leave the debit card behind in his room.

Stella had gone to India with a phone full of friends. She still had a phone full of friends. She kept the clothes and left everything else. The best thing about having a phone full of friends was that every friend had more interest in her than he or she did in SHIELD.

And whether they knew it or not, Tony knew that they had left everything. He slipped a backup card in Bruce's sack when he wasn't looking.

Bruce didn't like airports and would rather die than get on another plane, so they one of Tony's cheaper cars.

The four of them -Bruce, Stella, Tony, and Pepper- stood out in front of Stark Tower, staring each other down somewhat suspiciously. Next to them, a white Cadillac idled loudly, its engine grumbling like a lion. Stella was fairly certain that Tony had probably put something in the Cadillac that they didn't want, but she decided not to check until later.

"Three months," Tony said, crossing his arms. "Or I'll come looking for you."

No one argued with Tony Stark.

"We'll be back," Bruce assured soothingly. He gave Tony a quick bro-hug and hugged Pepper as well.

"Or not," Stella joked. She gave Pepper a tight hug and glared at Tony for a moment before giving him a hug as well.

"Three months," Tony repeated. He glanced at Bruce, who was fidgeting with something in his pocket. Tony was a fairly good guesser, and judging by the lack of bling on Stella's finger, he correctly inferred as to what it was. "And now, I think Bruce has something to say."

Bruce glared at him. "Now's not the time, Tony."

"Oh, yes it is," Tony snapped, clapping Bruce on the shoulder. "You've had that thing in your pocket for two days."

"What?" Stella asked, leaning against the Cadillac.

Bruce drew the tiny box out of his pocket, his long fingers wrapped securely, tightly around it. He opened his hand and flicked the lid open with the belly of his thumb. Inside of the tiny, black velvet box, a ring was nestled securely. It wasn't extravagant; it was simple and pretty. A tiny diamond was set into the thin gold band, and it sparkled prettily in the light.

"It's not much," he began, smiling at Stella's wide grin. "But it's yours, along with my heart."

He slipped the band onto her finger, and she threw her arms around his neck. For once in her life, she was speechless.

"Three months," Tony reminded. And he actually opened the car door for them.

* * *

**A/N:** It's over, it's finished. Thanks for sticking with me of most of the course of this year. It's time to look to the future, though, and it looks productive. I've got three other projects that I'm working on, and that I've been working on over the course of this story, and one I'm planning. Some of you may be interested in the Tony/Bruce story that I'm planning, but as I understand it, most people are more into Stony rather than Brony. But either way, I hope you all enjoyed this story, all twenty-six chapters of it.

And so we go!


End file.
